Evaluating the Web Accessibility of Websites of the Central Government of Nepal Bimal Pratap Shah, Subarna Shakya National IT Center, Singha Durbar Kathmandu, Nepal 0977-1-4244617
[email protected],
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economic development. Governments of developed countries have already started to include accessibility guidelines as part of their e-government strategies as the Web is an important e-government platform interfacing with citizens. Ignoring Web accessibility guidelines will be considered as a digital Apartheid and will be interpreted as government’s discrimination againts PWDs.
ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to evaluate 27 central government websites of the government of Nepal using web-based analysis tool called “Bobby”. The evaluation is based on the Web Content Accessibility guidelines (WCAG) provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The results of the evaluation, the importance of Web accessibility and recommendations for improvement are highlighted in the paper.
Currently in Nepal, the government is putting more than required emphasis on government Websites. The websites are glorified as a tool for efficient information dissemination and service delivery without serious systematic evaluation of government Web pages to justify governments efforts to go online. This evaluation can be considred as the starting point for the government of Nepal to understand the importance of Web acessibility.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1.2 [User/Machine Systems]: Human factors. H.5.2. [User Interfaces]: Evaluation. H.5.4. [Hypertext/Hypermedia]: User issues. K.4.2 [Social Issues]: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities.
2. ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES/TOOLS The W3C’s WCAG1.0 was used for the purpose of evaluation. The guideline aims to explain to Web developers/designers the ways to make Web content accessible for people with and without disabilities so that they have better accessibility on any form of user agent (desktop browser, voice browser, mobile phone etc). The guideline also includes fourteen procedures for developing accessible Websites so that PWDs can access Web sites. Moreover, the acceptance of these guidelines will enable typical users to find information on the Web more quickly [2].
General Terms Management, Accessibility, Documentation, Performance, Design, Usability, Reliability, Experimentation, E-government, Human Factors, Standardization, W3C, Verification
Keywords E-government, Web Accessibility, W3C, WCAG, Government of Nepal, Government websites
In addition, each guideline is followed by an appropriate list of checkpoint definitions that explain procedures for applying the guidelines. Each checkpoint has a priority level based on the checkpoints impact on accessibility. See Table 1 for more details.
1. INTRODUCTION There are 29.7 billion Web Pages with 1 billion Web users on the Internet (Netcraft, 2006) and the number is increasing day by day. The Web is usually regarded as a low cost, all encompassing, and far reaching medium (Parker, 1997) but often web sites are not accessible to the disabled. One measure of accessibility is provided by the Web accessibility Guidelines from W3C.
Table 1: Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG)
The W3C Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI) states that accessibility enables people with disabilities (PWD’s) to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the Web so that they are able to participate and contribute effectively in the national socio-
Priority 1
Web content MUST satisfy this checkpoint.
Priority 2
Web content SHOULD satisfy this checkpoint.
Priority 3
Web content MAY address this checkpoint.
The W3C also defines three levels of Conformance to the WCAG
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Level “A”: all priority 1 checkpoints are satisfied.
o
Level “AA”: all priority 1 & 2 checkpoints are satisfied.
o
Level “AAA”: all priority 1, 2 & 3 checkpoints are satisfied.
Bobby” is a Web-based Web accessibility tool developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology and it was used to check completion level of three levels of conformance.
4.
The results of the evaluation indicate that the situation of Web accessibility in Nepal is unsatisfactory, with only 11.1% homepages of central Government Websites conforming to the level “A”. The study covered all mistakes of priority 1 and also provides insight into the top 3 mistakes found in priority 2 and 3 checkpoints. It is important to understand that satisfying priority 1 is mandatory for Web accessibility. However, conforming to priorities 2 and 3 is also recommended.
3. EVALUATION METHOD Out of 30 homepages of the central government of Nepal, only 27 were selected for evaluation on 21st August, 2007. The web site of the National Planning Commission could not be evaluated. The Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare have no Websites. “Bobby’s” evaluation results are categorized into four sections: General, Quality, Accessibility, and Privacy. For the purpose of this study, we focus on the results under accessibility section.
It is apparent from the study that accessibility issues were mostly ignored by government managers as well as web designers. Most of the time, Web designers claim that they will take care of accessibility later, but it does not happen because of the pressures from the company owner to publish the Websites as soon as possible (Powell, 2000).
3.1 COMMON OBSTACLES TO THE WEB The result of the evaluation shows that only the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies conformed to the level “A” and “AAA”, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works conformed to the level “A”. The remaining government Websites did not conform to any level.
The government of Nepal is busy spreading the mantra of egovernment transformation where information and services will be delivered through the Web. However, through the Web evaluation it is apparent that the government has not yet understood the importance of catering to the PWDs.
The three most common mistakes of Conformance Level “A”, “AA”, and “AAA”, the number and percentage of government organizations that violated priority checkpoints 1, 2 & 3 are discussed below. Please refer to Table 2 for details.
Besides the benefits of serving the PWDs, accessible Websites can have good impact on the reputation of the government as they will increase the number of satisfied citizens, fulfill government obligation of catering to all citizens of Nepal, and also show that the government is serious about its citizens.
Table 2: Top three mistakes of government Websites Priority 1 (“A”)
Priority 2 (“AA”)
Priority 3 (“AAA”)
C
N
%
C
N
%
C
N
%
1.1
22
81
3.4
22
81
4.3
25
92.5
1.1
5
18.5
13.1
19
70
5.5
23
85
12.4
1
3.7
9.3
11
40.7
10.5
18
66.6
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to tackle Web accessibility issues, the Government of Nepal should first tackle Web accessibility at the policy level, by developing accessibility Rules and Regulations followed by a massive awareness programs for government administrators and technical staff responsible for Web development. It is essential that the technical and human components of Web development and interaction work together in order for the Web to be accessible to PWDs (Chisholm & Henry, 2005), so that government duties towards citizens are reflected on its Websites.
C = Number of checkpoints N = Number of government organizations The top 3 common mistakes for Conformance Level “A” were the lack of alternative text for all images on the Websites, the lack of alternative text for all image maps and the lack of alternative text for all image-type buttons in forms. The top 3 common mistakes for Conformance Level “AA” was absence of relative sizing and positioning, making sure that link phrases make sense when read out of contexts, and ensuring that event handlers do not require the use of mouse. The top 3 common mistakes for Conformance Level “AAA” were: requiring an identifying language of text, requiring summary for tables, and requiring separate adjacent links with more than white space.
5. REFERENCES [1] Chisholm W., Vanderheiden, G., Jacobs, I. (2000). Techniques for Web content accessibility guidelines 1.0. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAIWEBCONTENT/full-checklist.htm [2] Krunic T. and Dimitrijevic L.R (2007).”Condition of Web Accessibility in Practice and Suggestions for its improvement”. Informing Science Journal, Volume 10 [3] Netcraft (2006). Web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/09/05/september_20 06_Web_server_survey.html
3.7% of the Websites of the Government of Nepal conform to the levels 1 and 3 and 11.1 % conform to the level 1.
[4] Parker, R. (1997). Guide to Web Content and Design. N.Y.: MIS Press. [6] Powell, T. A. (2000) Web Design: The complete reference. McGraw-Hill
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