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A Challenge to Web Accessibility Metrics and Guidelines: Putting People and Processes First

A paper on "A Challenge to Web Accessibility Metrics and Guidelines: Putting People and Processes First" was accepted for the Ninth International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility. The W4A 2012 event had the theme "Web of Data and Accessibility".

Materials

This paper is available from Opus, the University of Bath institutional repository.

Paper

Preprint
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Citation Details

A Challenge to Web Accessibility Metrics and Guidelines: Putting People and Processes First, Cooper, M., Sloan, D., Kelly, B. and Lewthwaite, S. W4A 2012, April 16-17, 2012, Lyon, France. Co-Located with the 21st International World Wide Web Conference. Copyright 2012 ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-1019-2

Author Details

The co-authors of this paper are:

Brian Kelly was the lead author. You can view Brian's Google+ page. His email address is currently b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that web accessibility is not an intrinsic characteristic of a digital resource but is determined by complex political, social and other contextual factors, as well as technical aspects which are the focus of WAI standardisation activities. It can therefore be inappropriate to develop legislation or focus on metrics only associated with properties of the resource.

The authors describe the value of standards such as BS 8878 which focus on best practices for the process of developing web products and include a user focus.

The paper concludes with a case study that illustrates how learning analytics could provide data to support the improvement of the inclusivity of learning resources, providing a broader perspective beyond the digital resource.

Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.2 [User Interfaces - Evaluation/methodology];
K.4.2 [Social Issues - Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities]
General Terms
Measurement, Documentation, Human Factors.
Keywords
Web accessibility, disabled people, policy, user experience, social inclusion, guidelines, development lifecycle, procurement.

Video Summary

Note that a video summary of the paper, which lasts for 90 seconds, is available on YouTube and is embedded below. Note that a summary of the talk is available (MS Word format)