Tab to Autocomplete: The Effects of AI Coding Assistants on Web Accessibility

With the ongoing expansion of library resources and services in an online environment, librarians must stay informed of the many issues on web accessibility and usability to meet user needs. This is both a legal and a moral imperative. The book Web Accessibility is edited by Jenny Craven, a librarian at the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) and a member of the the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions' Standing Committee of the Section of Libraries of the Blind. Craven provides a well-written and thoughtful overview, which serves as a practical guide for information professionals who want a better understanding of the subject. The book consists of ten chapters written by experts and experienced practitioners in their respective areas. The topics include tools used for widening access to the web, the ways web accessibility affects different people, the importance of web accessibility, accessibility advice and guidance, accessibility evaluation and assessment, issues for library and information services, library and information science curricula, best practices, and web accessibility in the future. Craven brings a needed perspective of how web accessibility and usability relate to the work of library and information professionals. As a collection of writings, Web Accessibility will appeal both to novices to web accessibility issues and to more knowledgeable information professionals. The chapters are written so that they can be read independently, each with helpful cross-references to other relevant chapters of the book. Each chapter ends with a summary of conclusions, bibliographic references, and uniform resource locators (URLs) for the web resources referenced in the text. Readers will find the referenced web resources valuable supplements to further explore the topics addressed in the chapters. Although the book is written from a UK perspective, the information in Web Accessibility remains relevant to a worldwide audience. The book has a few country- and culture-specific references, but they do not hamper comprehension of the content. The primary area of significant difference is in legislation. The authors acknowledge that legislation related to copyright issues and disability discrimination can be different in other countries. For example, the chapter on the importance of web accessibility covers UK legislation as well as legislation elsewhere in the world, with specific examples of web accessibility–related legislation in the United States, Australia, and other countries. The examples from other countries actually help broaden the reader's perspective of how different countries have supported disability rights in various ways. This international perspective is one of the strengths of the book, and additional examples in other chapters would have further enriched the content. Throughout Web Accessibility, practical advice and specific strategies are outlined for librarians to follow. The early chapters address technical issues of accessibility before discussing library content in subsequent chapters. This approach makes it easier to fully understand the context of the issues librarians and other information professionals face. Despite starting out with a technical focus, the book is a quick, easy read. Basic strategies for user customization can be found in the chapter on tools for accessing web-based digital materials. The chapter also provides information on how various operating system adjustments can enhance accessibility and usability. These adjustments include keyboard settings, cursor blink rates, mouse settings, sound settings, speech recognition, and so on. In addition, a summary of third-party solutions (such as commercial screen readers and Braille output) that are currently available is provided. The later chapters offer the most practical advice for librarians, identifying the pitfalls of the typical approaches to accessibility assessment: automated evaluation, manual inspection, or evaluation by users with disabilities. These chapters also provide valuable advice on conducting an accessibility audit as well as detailed information about structuring the audit report. Peter Brophy's chapter on issues specific to libraries and information services presents a sevenfold strategy for getting started on accessibility. Perhaps the most important of these strategies is maintaining a policy commitment to continuous assessment so that it is an organizational priority. Craven herself covers web accessibility best practices in the penultimate chapter. While she does not attempt to provide a comprehensive list, she successfully identifies effective techniques for assessing and improving accessibility. Overall, the book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to know more about the current practices of web accessibility. As editor, Craven does an excellent job of balancing the theoretical and practical issues without turning the book into a how-to manual. It is disappointing that the book did not provide greater details about web accessibility as it relates to the Web 2.0 technologies. Although the chapter on the future of web accessibility mentions this subject, the Web 2.0 technologies presently integral to online user environments would assist readers who expect more information. Readers can locate further information on this area through blogs and recent journal articles. It is a current area for opportunities and challenges for librarians, so it would have been beneficial to see a discussion of accessibility for social networking tools, user-generated content, and dynamic Java-based web applications. Web Accessibility is a must read for anyone who needs to know more about how web accessibility and usability are essential for library and information professionals.

After the launch of the Mobile Web Initiative at the World Wide Web Conference 2005 we are beginning to realise that, today, mobile Web access suffers from interoperability and usability problems that make the Web difficult to use. With the move to small screen size, low bandwidth, and different operating modalities, technology is in effect simulating the sensory and cognitive impairments experienced by disabled users within the wider population of mobile device users. In this our third workshop we ask the question "Is engineering, designing, and building for the mobile Web just a rehash of the same old Web accessibility problems?"These proceedings bring together a cross section of the Web design, accessibility and mobile Web communities. The papers included here report on developments, discuss the issues, and suggest cross-pollinated solutions.Conventional workshops on accessibility tend to be single disciplinary in nature. However, we are concerned that this focus on a single participant group prevents the cross-pollination of ideas, needs, and technologies from other related but separate fields. As with the first, this second workshop is decidedly cross disciplinary in nature and brings together users, accessibility experts, graphic designers, and technologists from academia and industry to discuss how accessibility can be supported. We also encourage the participation of users and other interested parties as an additional balance to the discussion. Our aim is to focus on accessibility by encouraging participation from many disciplines. Views often bridge academia, commerce, and industry and arguments encompass a range of beliefs across the design-accessibility spectrum.

Ensuring web accessibility for all is not an easy task and requires the awareness, understanding and practices of people with different roles. User experience professionals (UXPs) play an important role in ensuring web accessibility for all. However, in Turkey, there is no research concerning the status of the awareness, understanding and common practices of UXPs. The overall goal of the present work was to offer an assessment of the current situation in Turkey to suggest areas of improvement and changes to advance web accessibility practices. To meet this goal, we conducted an online survey. The results of this survey show that UXPs believe they have enough training and education in web accessibility; however, they are not familiar with web accessibility standards and assistive technologies used by people with disabilities. They do not work with people with disabilities in their studies on usability, and they do not consider web accessibility in their projects. Our findings also show that UXPs have a top-down approach to web accessibility and they think that it is the responsibility of project managers to make web applications accessible. In brief, the study showed that UXPs in Turkey need to be better educated and trained on web accessibility, and organizations need to realize that both top-down and bottom-up approaches are required to ensure accessibility of the web for all.

Salient beliefs influencing the intention to consider Web Accessibility

PurposeWeb accessibility is the practice of making web sites accessible to people, such as the disabled, who are using more than just traditional web browsers to access the internet. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to overview web accessibility and to highlight the ethics of web accessibility from a managerial perspective.Design/methodology/approachTo that end, this paper reviews related literature, highlights relevant public policy, discusses web accessibility from a systems development perspective, and concludes with a discussion of web accessibility with respect to different ethical theories.FindingsThe findings take the form of a tutorial that highlights how to address web accessibility projects. The findings also examine web accessibility projects as they relate to well‐known ethical theories. Additionally, the findings also incorporate ethical opinions from web designers who have completed web accessibility projects in the past.Originality/valueThe paper makes several contributions to the existing literatures on web accessibility and ethics. An important contribution is that the paper is the first tutorial on web accessibility that also examines the topic through the lens of ethical theories. In addition to the tutorial, the paper reports on the opinions of web designers who have worked on web accessibility projects in the past.

This article aims at identifying the factors influencing the implementation of Web accessibility (WA) by European banks and its effects on the visibility through the Internet. We studied a database made up of 51 European banks whose shares are included in the Dow Jones EURO STOXX® TMI Banks [8300] Index. Regarding the factors for the implementation of WA, we considered two feasible reasons. First, WA adoption can be motivated by operational factors, as WA can contribute to increase the efficiency of the operations. Second, WA can also be understood as a part of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, so banks that are more committed with CSR should be more prone to implement WA. However, our results indicate that neither operational nor social factors seem to have exerted a significant influence on WA adoption. An implication of these findings is the advisability of orientating governmental policies to firm awareness of the fact that WA should be a part of the CSR activities of banks. Regarding the effects of the implementation of WA, our results indicate that the effort pays dividends in terms of Internet visibility. This could eventually contribute to increase future revenues and, therefore, the performance of WA‐committed banks.

HTML5 is the next generation of web standards, and needs to be used to improve Web accessibility. To do this, Korea has taken various activities, such as laying down laws and standards related to web accessibility and investigating the realities of web accessibility. Recently, the market for web accessibility has been growing. This study compared the rates of building up HTML5, focusing on the top 100 most visited websites in Korea and abroad. Also, this study assessed the web accessibility of websites built in HTML5, and compared the web accessibility of Korea to those of foreign countries, verifying any efforts made to decrease any information gap. The results of this study show that Korea has built fewer HTML5 web sites than foreign countries. However, the web accessibility in Korea has steadily increased, and there is not much difference in web accessibility between Korea and foreign countries.

With an abundance of library resources being served on the web, researchers are finding that disabled people oftentimes do not have the same level of access to materials as their nondisabled peers. This paper discusses web accessibility in the context of United States’ federal laws most referenced in web accessibility lawsuits. Additionally, it reveals which states have statutes that mirror federal web accessibility guidelines and to what extent. Interestingly, fewer than half of the states have adopted statutes addressing web accessibility, and fewer than half of these reference Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act or Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. Regardless of sparse legislation surrounding web accessibility, librarians should consult the appropriate web accessibility resources to ensure that their specialized content reaches all.

University web portals are considered one of the main access gateways for universities. Typically, they have a large candidate audience among the current students, employees, and faculty members aside from previous and future students, employees, and faculty members. Web accessibility is the concept of providing web content universal access to different machines and people with different ages, skills, education levels, and abilities. Several web accessibility metrics have been proposed in previous years to measure web accessibility. We integrated and extracted common web accessibility metrics from the different accessibility tools used in this study. This study evaluates web accessibility metrics for 36 Jordanian universities and educational institute websites. We analyze the level of web accessibility using a number of available evaluation tools against the standard guidelines for web accessibility. Receiver operating characteristic quality measurements is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the integrated accessibility metrics.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has shown great commitment and support in past 10 years towards the higher education and transformation of manual governmental services to online through web. As a result number of university and e-government websites increased but without following the proper accessibility guidelines. Due to this many disable peoples may not be fully benefited the contents available on university and government websites. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report, there are more than one billion people all over the world facing different kind of disabilities. Almost 720,000 Saudi nationals are disable which is about 4% of total Saudi population. The objective of this study is to review the existing literature to identify the web accessibility issues in Saudi Arabian university and government websites through a systematic literature review. Several scholarly databases were searched for the research studies published on web accessibility evaluation globally and in Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2017. Only 15 (6 based on Saudi Arabia and 9 global) research articles out of 123 articles fulfilled the selection criteria. Literature review reveals that web accessibility is a global issue and many countries around the world including Saudi Arabia are facing web accessibility challenges. Moreover web accessibility guidelines WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 are not addressing many problems which are faced by user and some guidelines were not effective to avoid the user problems. However, findings in this study open a new dimension in web accessibility to do extensive research to determine the web accessibility criterions/standards in context of Saudi Arabia.

Web accessibility becomes one of the important elements in web-related design. In line with its growing importance, considerable works have been published to examine various issues related to web accessibility. Despite various types of works have been made available, this paper observes the trend of dissertation works on web accessibility in the last five years (2013 to 2017). This study aims to offer insights into the physiognomies of the research on web accessibility, with a particular focus on higher institution. Authors employs bibliometric analysis to examine the thesis titles as indexed by Google Scholar as of February 2018. The dissertation titles that contain web accessibility related keywords have been obtained and analyzed. After the cleaning process, a total of 39 theses are available for further. This paper reports the analysis of thesis/dissertations published with respect to publication year, dissertation type, institutions name, field of research and text analysis of the thesis title. The results from this study is expected to offer insights on the trend of web accessibility studies, particularly the dissertation/thesis that have been published apart from offering potential direction for future research.

본 연구는 정부 및 공공기관의 보건 관련 웹 사이트들의 웹 접근성을 한국형 지침에 따라 평가하여 장애인이나 노령자들과 같은 정보이용 소외집단들이 겪을 수 있는 문제점들을 파악하고자 하였다. 본 연구에서는 총 27개의 보건 관련 웹 사이트의 접근성을 자동평가 및 전문가 평가를 수행하여 측정하였다. 두 단계의 평가를 실시한 결과를 종합해 볼 때, 국립병원이나 국립재활원 등과 같은 의료기관들은 웹 접근성 오류가 거의 없는 것으로 나타났으며, 그 외에도 건강보험심사평가원, 보건복지부, 보건사업진흥원, 식품의약품안전처, 그리고, 한국의료분쟁 조정중재원 등은 웹 접근성 준수율이 매우 높았다. 그러나 전문가 평가를 실시한 결과, 자동평가에서는 오류가 없는 것으로 나타났던 적절한 대체텍스트의 제공이 매우 미흡한 것으로 나타났으며, 텍스트 콘텐츠의 명도 대비가 표준에 미치지 않아 전맹자나 저시력자들의 웹 접근성을 지원하기 힘든 것으로 평가되었다. 그 외에도 기본언어표시와 마크업 오류 등 정확한 정보의 전달을 어렵게 하는 문제들이 나타났고, 반복영역 건너뛰기, 콘텐츠 선형화, 그리고 키보드 사용보장을 준수하지 않는 문제들이 발견되어 시각장애뿐 아니라 인지장애 내지 운동장애가 있는 이용자에게는 웹 접근성을 심각하게 방해하는 요소가 될 수 있는 것으로 파악되었다. 본 연구는 국내 연구로서는 처음으로 정부 및 공공기관의 보건관련 웹 사이트들의 접근성을 한국형 지침에 따라 평가했다. 또한, 이러한 웹 사이트들을 대상으로 자동 평가로 측정하기 어려운 웹 접근성의 정도와 상세한 내용 분석을 포괄하는 전문가 평가를 수행했다는 점에서 웹 접근성 연구 분야에 기여했다고 볼 수 있다. The purpose of this study was to identify Web accessibility issues of healthcare websites of the Korean government and public agencies by evaluating these websites' accessibility in accordance with the Korean Web Contents Accessibility Guideline. This study conducted both automated and expert testing to assess the accessibility of a total of 27 health-related websites. The results of the assessment which was conducted in two stages indicated that institutions such as the National Hospital and National Rehabilitation Center demonstrated almost no Web accessibility error. In addition, the Korea Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Health Services Agency, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency attained very high web accessibility. However, the results of an expert evaluation highlighted that there were considerable errors in providing appropriate alternative text, which was not found in the automated test, and the color contrast of the text content did not comply with Web accessibility standard. Therefore, these websites did not support web accessibility for the sight-impaired. Furthermore, the present study found that it was difficult to deliver accurate information to users due to errors in the default language display and markup, and also, issues of skipping repeated content, content linearization, and compliance with keyboard use were considered as challenges that might arise for people with sight, cognitive and mobility impairments with respect to Web accessibility. It is the first study that evaluated accessibility of healthcare websites of the Korean government and public agencies based on the Korean Web Contents Accessibility Guideline. The present study made a contribution to research on Web accessibility by conducting expert testing, which provided a more complete assessment that identified the degree and specific issues of accessibility errors when compared to automated testing.

Background Knowledge-to-action gap exists in delivering physical activity (PA) to people with developmental disabilities via online platforms. Although web-based platforms have great potential in facilitating the delivery of PA for this target group, the lack of knowledge regarding web accessibility poses a challenge in accessing PA-related information online. Objective This study evaluates the delivery of PA in terms of web accessibility. It also aims to identify barriers and facilitators in delivering PA knowledge to people with developmental disabilities online to improve web accessibility for the target user group. Methods The study employs a concurrent nested design incorporating both quantitative (web usability questionnaire) and qualitative data (in-depth interviews). Fifteen pairs of individuals consisting of a person with developmental disabilities and a primary caregiver participated in the study, and three web-based platforms were selected for web accessibility tests and in-depth interviews. Results The nested analysis provides a quantitative comparison of web accessibility and identifies barriers and facilitators of delivering PA for the target user group from the web accessibility perspective. Conclusion: The study findings could inform the development of accessible online platforms that distribute health-related knowledge to populations with developmental disabilities. Additionally, they could help enhance the design of other platforms intended for these populations.

Determinants of the Web accessibility of European banks

The rapid development following the emergence of web technologies has facilitated users' access to information. The design processes of web platforms are of great importance to ensure that all users can access these platforms. Within this process, it can be said that the use of web accessibility in the field of web technologies has become a key element. In this context, the need has arisen for individuals with various disadvantages and general users to access digital platforms on equal terms. Web accessibility is not limited to the implementation of technical criteria; it is also associated with users’ ability to perceive and interpret focal points through the fundamental principles of visual and cognitive psychology. In this regard, the transition of web accessibility from technical standards to the process of visual perception and interpretation offers a significant perspective through Gestalt Psychology and theory. The visual perception principles of Gestalt Psychology and theory, which are increasingly utilized in design processes, are widely used in interface designs of digital platforms and in the design of accessible websites. Web platforms prepared in accordance with Gestalt principles and WCAG 2.1 web accessibility criteria are of critical importance in being equal, accessible, and barrier-free for all users. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the websites of universities in terms of web accessibility criteria and to determine the extent to which they comply with these criteria. The study provides information on the use of Gestalt principles and web accessibility criteria in web interface design, the importance of web accessibility, and fundamental issues related to the web. In the study, based on the Webometrics Index ranking, the websites of the foundation universities ranked among the top three and the state universities ranked among the bottom three in Türkiye were examined within the scope of 30 basic web accessibility criteria of WCAG 2.1 Level A. In this context, the web accessibility status of the universities was revealed, deficiencies were identified, and necessary recommendations were provided.