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Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Thu, Jan 10 2013 7:20PM
Subject: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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Hey gang

I know, I am usually not a frequent poster, but a new year brings
interesting challenges, especially when you are pretty much the only
accessibility person in a country like Iceland (I actually live in the
U.S. but it is a long story).

I was sent an email today. The Icelandic Web professionals association
is having a big award ceremony on February the 8th, where they present
awards in several categories (most innovative website, most
user-friendly, coolest design etc.).
The shortlist consists of around 60 websites.
This year they want to draw attention to the need for accessibility,
so they asked me if I could select the most accessible web, or a web
worth an accessibility award, out of that group.
Iceland has agreed to adopt the WCAG 2.0 AA compliance level by 2015.

I have used various toolbars and online accessibility testing tools
and such, and would know what to do for one or two websites with
complete accessibility evaluation.
But I have never before been presented with the prospect of evaluating
60 websites in a short time.
My thought is that the nly achievable (though not ideal) way would be
to use an online accessibility checker on the site's front pages, WCAG
2.0 AA level.
Out of that experiment, take the 5 or so highest scores, and evaluate
the accessibility of these in more detail, through a combination of
manual testing and testing tools (including some of the most popular
sub pages).
If anyone has an idea, thought or recommendation to shre with me, I
would highly appreciate it.
I have to decide in a matter of days whether I can do this job, i.e.
whether this award can be presented.
I even get to meet the president of Iceland (ok, Ihave met him at a
grocery store, it is that kind of country).
Cheers and thanks to all, especiallly those who give me a clue as to what to do.
-B

From: Steve Green
Date: Thu, Jan 10 2013 7:44PM
Subject: Re: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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That's quite a challenge. Although the home pages are important, I would not rely on just testing them because they are often unique and totally unrepresentative of the rest of the website. I would therefore recommend assessing 3 to 5 pages per site.

As a sighted user it is easy for me to scan a few pages in a few seconds and pick out features that are likely to cause accessibility barriers. As a screen reader user it would take you much longer to do that, so I agree that you would need to use an automated tool unless you can get someone to identify potential issues for you to assess.

You then run into the problem that the tools often give false positives so you have quite a bit of verification to do. Even if the results are correct, how do you compare them? Simply adding up the number of non-compliances and picking the 5 sites with the lowest scores is pretty crude.

This sounds like one to two days' work, and there is a significant risk of recommending sites that are unworthy, and vice versa. Personally, I would probably decline to do this on the terms you have described unless I could get help from other people. I would offer to assess a few sites but my Icelandic is rather poor.

Steve Green

From: Angela French
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2013 9:41AM
Subject: Re: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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I would love to hear your story someday...how you came to be in the US, etc.

>Hey gang
>
>I know, I am usually not a frequent poster, but a new year brings interesting
>challenges, especially when you are pretty much the only accessibility
>person in a country like Iceland (I actually live in the U.S. but it is a long
>story).
>
>

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2013 11:05AM
Subject: Re: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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Good idea, the list should have a page where people can write up quick
bios if they so choose, could be a part of the joining process
(optional part of course).
May be we´d post one topic "who am I" if the list moderator thinks
it's ok, I am curious about a lot of you guys on here, your stories
and your background.

Regarding accessibility testing. My sighted colleague, who has over 10
years of experience, will provide input and widdle down the selection
to about 5 pages (she says visually it is easy to throw out sites that
are just obviously not accessible, basically exactly how Steve put
it).
I am also indiscussion with one of the enterprise accessibility
vendors to see if may be I could try out their solution for this test,
to see how the tool performs and test it as a screen reader user,
should be fun if it works.
Cheers
-B

On 1/11/13, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I would love to hear your story someday...how you came to be in the US,
> etc.
>
>>Hey gang
>>
>>I know, I am usually not a frequent poster, but a new year brings
>> interesting
>>challenges, especially when you are pretty much the only accessibility
>>person in a country like Iceland (I actually live in the U.S. but it is a
>> long
>>story).
>>
>>
> > > >

From: Lucy Greco
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2013 11:43AM
Subject: Re: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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I like your idea of using the tool and then taking the top 5 from that. I
really think that is the only way to wade through the list. But make sure
when you give the award that is what they know you did. Lucy

From: Don Mauck
Date: Fri, Jan 11 2013 2:15PM
Subject: Re: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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Which tool are you going to use? There seem to be so many that do things differently.

From: giorgio brajnik
Date: Sat, Jan 12 2013 6:58AM
Subject: Re: Best way to single out 3 to 5 "most accessible" sites out of a list of 60 or so
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Yes, using an automatic tool is a possible cheap way to go but be aware
of the fact that what you get in return is not necessarily a measure of
accessibility.
See for example an experiment we did a while ago:
http://markelvigo.info/papers/metrics11_IwC.pdf
Best regards

Giorgio Brajnik
Dip. di Matematica e Informatica | voice: +39 (0432) 55.8445
Università di Udine | fax: +39 (0432) 55.8499
Via delle Scienze, 206 | email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Loc. Rizzi -- 33100 Udine -- ITALY | http://www.dimi.uniud.it/giorgio


On 01/11/2013 10:15 PM, Don Mauck wrote:
> Which tool are you going to use? There seem to be so many that do things differently.
>