Accessibility tests of Australian University homepages

Dear WAI Interest Group,

This is my first post, but I am a bit of an accessibility vetran, a 
political activist even at testing government and educational websites 
for accessibility and then displaying the results for the public to 
see. Any critical comments on my work are most welcome.

I just finished an accessibility test of Australian University 
homepages, some universities have supported my work, others refuse to 
acknowledge me and claim I am being aggressive in these reviews. Is 
there a better way to go about promoting accessibility? Training 
courses seem such a waste of time to me, an excuse for a sandwich 
picnic. Through this page in the last two weeks, I have managed to get 
three Universities to improve their homepages for W3C validity, but not 
much movement yet on accessibility.

http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/AustUni.html#skipnav

64% of Australian Universities passed Priority One WCAG 1.0 
accessibility tests.
11% of Australian Universities passed Priority Three WCAG 1.0 Checlists

In a previous 2006 study comparing the accessibility of government 
sites in the UK USA and Australia, I found that generally UK sites had 
fewer html validation errors and more accessibility features than USA 
or Australian sites.

Study  design
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/WebSurvey.html
Australian government web site tests
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/AustWeb.html
USA sites tested for S.508 compliance
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/USAweb.html
UK sites tested had fewer errors and more accessibility features
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/UKweb.html
Results
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/Results.html

Yours Faithfully

Tim Anderson
The Editor
Heretic Press
http://www.hereticpress.com
Email dogstar27@optushome.com

Received on Wednesday, 9 May 2007 03:21:58 UTC