Study reveals most US Government websites are inaccessible

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Monday, 23 May 2011 11:24am

A recent study published in the Government Information Quarterly journal has found that most US Federal Government websites are inaccessible and do not comply with legislative accessibility requirements.

The study, conducted by doctoral student Abiodun Olalere and Professor Jonathan Lazar, tested 100 popular US Government websites and discovered that 90% of home pages were in breach of the US Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 508.

The types of issues discovered on the websites were varied, with the most prominent issues relating to a lack of alternative text for images, a lack of captions on video and incorrectly labelled forms.

Although the results are concerning, the US Federal Government is currently refreshing Section 508 to make it more closely aligned with version 2.0 of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and improved public procurement policies, and this is likely to lead to accessibility improvements on US Government websites.  In Australia, the Federal Government is currently working towards WCAG 2.0 accessibility compliance through its Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy.


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