An analysis of the Swedish web accessibility law through two public sector websites : A comparative study on the Student Financial Aid,and the Public Employment Service.

Abstract: Purpose  The purpose of this study was to investigate how well the law on accessibility is implemented, to find what implications there might be when accessing a website, and to find out how well a website needs to be adapted for it to be accessible. Method  The researchers made a comparative study between the Swedish public sector desktop websites, the Student Financial Aid and the Public Employment Service. The method used was a combination of automatic and manual evaluation of the accessibility on the websites. In the Automatic Evaluation the free tool A-checker, and a color contrast tool was used to check the code from the WCAG framework 2.0 AA. In the manual evaluation the researchers conducted a heuristic evaluation based on the WCAG’s checklist, a survey with 60 participants, and user tests with 5 participants using assistive technologies such as only using the keyboard, resizing the text and disabling the CSS sheet. The tests provided an input on how the websites can be accessed with assistive technologies and what improvements could be made.  Findings  This research found by conducting a survey, that 43.3% were not aware of the accessibility law, and that 58.3% were not aware that they can complain to the supervisor authority if a website is not accessible. Because of the lack of knowledge, this might make it harder for companies to adapt their websites to be accessible.  Further, the researchers found that since A-checker uses WCAG’s framework, it takes time to interpret what the recommendations actually mean. The other automated tool, the colour contrast tool was easy to interpret for the researchers, and the checklist from WCAG helped as a guide, even though the checklist was more time consuming.  Implications The researchers were not able to find any participants with any of the disabilities which the thesis focuses on. Limitations  In order to test the websites, the participants were using assistive technologies. The researchers could not get access to a screen reader, therefore the user tests were conducted by disabling the CSS sheet. In the survey, not enough participants with disabilities answered, therefore some of the results were discluded from the study.  Keywords Web accessibility, Web inclusion, Web exclusion, WCAG