Can consumers trust website accessibility declarations? Study commissioned by ANEC

Hi,

I would like to draw your attention to a study by the Design for All
Research Group at Middlesex University that was commissioned by ANEC (a
European organisation that represents consumers in standardisation):
"Declaring conformance on web accessibility"
<http://www.anec.eu/attachments/ANEC-R&T-2011-ICT-002finalrev.pdf>
(untagged PDF).
An ANEC press release about this study is available at
<http://www.anec.eu/attachments/ANEC-R&T-2011-ICT-002finalrev.pdf> (tagged
PDF).

This study was presented at the "Open workshop on European Accessibility
Requirements in Public Procurement of ICT products and services" two days
ago
(<http://www.epractice.eu/en/events/2011-eaccessibility-public-procurement>).
The study confirmed findings from earlier studies and arrived at the
depressing conclusion that few sites conform, even when they claim to
conform. The study also tried to find out whether 3rd-party certification
is more reliable than self-declaration of conformity (SDOC), but the
percentage of conforming sites in the study seems too low to make
statistically meaningful statements on this question.

Read and weep (again).

Best regards,

Christophe


-- 
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51 
www.docarch.be
Twitter: @RabelaisA11y

Received on Friday, 13 May 2011 13:29:12 UTC