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Re: Testing current accessibility of an entire University

for

From: philip steven lanier
Date: Sep 26, 2002 8:22AM

I have also done an accessibility analysis of a very large site. I would
recommend the following:

1) Familiarize yourself with accessibility guidelines, if you do not
already know them well. You should be able to look at a page and know
where the problem areas are going to be.

2) Do a content audit. Basically, take time to go through the site and
take inventory of what is there. You don't necessarily have to visit
every page, but you should make sure that you cover all the different
dimensions of what is represented on the site. For example, you should
make sure that you take stock of pages in different departments, course
home pages, library pages, student pages, etc, etc. Similarly, you should
make sure to well represent all the types of content (informational
pages, calendars, online forms, movies, documents, etc.). Make sure you
run the gamut of things that are problem areas for accessibility (i.e.
data tables, images, javascript menus, applets, online forms, etc.)

3) Evaluate the accessibility of a representative sample of the pages on
the site. Having done the content audit to direct what pages you
evaluate, you will also be able to report, for example, that "course
homepages are especially inaccessible, whereas library pages appear to be
much better. One problem that is prevalent across all areas of the site
is the use of..." (You get the idea.)

4) If there are any elements that are global across all pages or a large
portion of the site (such as a top navigation bar), evaluate this element
especially critically. Also, eveluate top-level pages in the site
critically.

Hope this helps!

Philip Lanier
University of Washington


On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Diana Ratliff wrote:

> Hello! Short of spending months running every single page through BOBBY or
> something, does anyone have any ideas on how to see how accessible a huge
> website currently is? For benchmarking purposes? Would also like RECENT
> data on general accessibility of universities as a backup document. Thank
> you!
>
> Diana Ratliff
>
>
>
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