Accessibility

The topic of accessibility is extremely important – not just when talking about website evaluation. It is important for ensuring equal access to information for all persons, regardless of their physical and cognitive abilities, and especially when you see the numbers – 54 million Americans have disabilities (Jaeger, 2006). Also, note Jaeger’s reminder that this number will only grow as the baby boomers age.

John presented on accessibility last year in Evaluation class (I believe that website accessibility is his preferred research stream), and I remember that he said this about accessibility – the area has relatively clear standards, but little evaluation is being done. Thank goodness for Paul Jaeger and (not brown-nosing here) the Information Institute, or probably even less would be done!

Most of you probably know that 1. Chuck loves multi-method iterative evaluation and 2. the Institute conducted an evaluation of the Florida Electronic Library, so you can probably guess that #2 involved #1 (Bertot, Snead, Jaeger, & McClure, 2006). That study combined functionality, usability and accessibility testing, getting back to a point Chuck highlighted in class when I discovered the problem with the button location on (I think) USASpending.gov. I had enlarged the text on the webpage but then couldn’t click the “Go” button because the link hadn’t shifted with the text. Chuck asked if that was a usability, functionality, or accessibility issue. Now that I have been properly indoctrinated, I of course knew the answer – D. All of the above. So not only is accessibility important in its own right, it’s important to overall usability and functionality as well.

I do find it interesting that Section 508 has exemptions since I don’t really see why any federal electronic and information technology system should NOT provide equal access for all persons, regardless of ability (IT Accessibility & Workforce Division, n.d.a, n.d.b). And I was especially interested to see what the exemptions are – systems used for military command, weaponry, intelligence, and cryptology, also back office equipment used by service personnel for maintenance, repair, etc. Um, the military and intelligence departments can discriminate against differently-abled persons, and that’s OK? And repair men (and women, I suppose), cannot be people with any disabilities? What? Congress didn’t see the problems with this? Meanwhile, there’s the “undue burden” exemption, yet another example of vague language. Section 508 actually includes a definition of undue burden [I was really excited], but it means “significant difficulty or expense” with NO definition of the ever-popular significant [suddenly I was less excited] (IT Accessibility & Workforce Division, n.d.a, n.d.b).

But, it’s great that we even have Section 508. That’s a huge step forward. Now, if only it were implemented, which Jaeger reminds us is not happening in any standardized, government-wide way (2006). Jaeger’s policy analysis revealed that Section 508 requirements and guidelines, if correctly implemented, should produce websites accessible to most or all disabled persons. So why aren’t they? One possibility that agencies don’t all give accessibility the same level of importance. Another is lack of funding. And education. So, what can we do about this? There needs to be stronger enforcement of Section 508, and that probably requires some punitive impact on non-compliant agencies since we know the carrot approach to motivation does not work well with civil servants.

References

Bertot, J. C., Snead, J. T., Jaeger, P. T., & McClure, C. R. (2006). Functionality, usability, and accessibility: iterative user-centered evaluation strategies for digital libraries. Performance Measurement and Metrics, 7(1), 17-28. Retrieved March 14, 2008, from Emerald Insight database.

IT Accessibility & Workforce Division, Office of Governmentwide Policy, U.S. General Services Administration. (n.d.a). Section 508 standards [Electronic resource]. Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Services Administration, Office of Governmentwide Policy, IT Accessibility & Workforce Division. Retrieved February 27, 2009, http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12

IT Accessibility & Workforce Division, Office of Governmentwide Policy, U.S. General Services Administration. (n.d.b). Summary of Section 508 standards [Electronic resource]. Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Services Administration, Office of Governmentwide Policy, IT Accessibility & Workforce Division. Retrieved February 27, 2009, http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=11

Jaeger, P. T. (2006). Assessing Section 508 compliance on federal e-government Web sites: a multi-method, user-centered evaluation of accessibility for persons with disabilities. Government Information Quarterly, 23(2), 169-190. Retrieved February 27, 2009, from WilsonWeb database.