RE: Accessibility studies in the latest issue of First Monday

Funny that Italy, the first country with a " real law", is not listed :)

----- Messaggio originale -----
    Da: "John M Slatin"<john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu>
    Inviato: 03/08/04 17.41.54
    A: "w3c-wai-gl@w3.org"<w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
    Oggetto: FW: Accessibility studies in the latest issue of First Monday
    
    
    The July 2004 issue of First Monday includes two studies of
    accessibility. One focuses on four member states of the European Union
    and WCAG 1.0; the other focuses on the US and Section 508.
    
    -----Original Message-----
    John
    
    From: Jayne Cravens [mailto:Jayne.Cravens@unvolunteers.org] 
    Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 8:45 am
    To: meaflink@merl.com
    Subject: Accessibility studies in the latest issue of First Monday
    
    
    (please do not write Jayne, the poster of this message, asking for more
    information. She does not have any) 
    
    Accessibility studies in the latest issue of First Monday
    
    The July issue of First Monday has a couple of articles related to Web
    accessibility. Below are the abstracts of the two essays, along with
    links to the full article.
    
    A comparative assessment of Web accessibility and technical standards
    conformance in four EU states by Carmen Marincu and Barry McMullin
    http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_7/marincu/index.html
    
    Abstract:
    The Internet is playing a progressively more important part in our
    day-to-day life, through its power of making information universally
    available. People with disabilities have particular opportunities to
    benefit. Using the Internet in conjunction with dedicated assistive
    technologies, tasks that were very difficult if not impossible to
    achieve for people with various types of disability can now be made
    fully accessible ? at least, in principle. However, in practice, many
    online resources and services are still poorly accessible to those with
    disability due to unsatisfactory Web content design.
    
    Design of accessible Web content is codified in standards and guidelines
    of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Conformance with W3C's Web
    Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG) (and/or similar, derivative
    guidelines) is now the subject of considerable activity, both legal and
    technical, in many different jurisdictions.
    
    This paper presents results of a comparative survey of Web accessibility
    guidelines and HTML standards conformance for samples of Web sites drawn
    from Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. It also gives some
    recommendations on how to improve the accessibility level of Web
    content.
    
    A particular conclusion of the study is that the general level of Web
    accessibility guidelines and HTML standards conformance in all of the
    samples studied is very poor; and that the pattern of failure is
    strikingly consistent in the four samples. Although considerable efforts
    are being made to promote Web accessibility for users with disabilities,
    this is certainly not yet manifesting itself in improving Web
    accessibility and HTML validity.
    -------------
    Assessing the accessibility of fifty United States government Web pages:
    
    Using Bobby to check on Uncle Sam
    by Jim Ellison
    http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_7/ellison/index.html
    
    Abstract:
    This study evaluates the current accessibility of U.S. Government Web
    pages for people with disabilities. Several Federal laws, and
    specifically Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, require Web
    pages of government agencies to be accessible to people with
    disabilities. This investigation built on past studies that used the Web
    accessibility evaluation tool Bobby to assess various types of Web
    sites. The home pages of fifty U.S. government agencies were reviewed
    for accessibility based on Section 508 guidelines. This study
    establishes that the U.S. government has not met its accessibility
    goals.
    
    
    ( please do not write Jayne, the poster of this message, asking for more
    information. She does not have any) 
    
    
    
    
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Jayne Cravens (jayne.cravens@unvolunteers.org)
    Online Volunteering Specialist
    United Nations Volunteers
    www.unvolunteers.org
    Bonn, Germany
    
    Online Volunteering:  www.onlinevolunteering.org
    UNITeS: www.unites.org
    Global volunteerism portal: www.worldvolunteerweb.org
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      
     
    
    
    

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Received on Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:52:54 UTC