Comparing Web Accessibility between Major Retailers and Novelties for E-Commerce

Abstract: Purpose –Comparing the accessibility of e-commerce for General Merchandise, between major retailers and novelties, in the conformance of web accessibility guidelines, and the implementation of rich internet applications specifications. So that to figure out whether the differences exist between them, if so, what are the differences, and analyzing upcoming e-commerce and established e-commerce.  Method – The descriptive and quantitative case studies were used to evaluated 45 websites respectively from major retailers and novelties in General Merchandise of e-commerce, where sample websites were selected from Alexa’s rank lists. Then the WAVE tool, Accessibility Quantitative Metric (WAQM), and Fona assessment were applied for analyzing cases for representing the accessibilities and answering the research questions of purpose.  Findings – ARIA specifications as a kind of technological solution really had positive functions on web accessibility when only focusing on accessibility guidelines, because the novelty websites with less ARIA attributes resulting in lower accessibility levels generally, even though there were also many other elements that can affect accessibility.  Implications – In the main branch of General Merchandise, the degree of web accessibility in major retailer websites was better than that in novelties, which means as far as e-commerce is concerned, the accessibility of mature websites that had been established for a long time was contemporarily stronger than that of new websites with creative products.  Limitations – From the perspective of the sample, there were limitations in sample sources, size, websites languages, while in the technical aspect, the evaluation of dynamic contents just aims at keyboard navigation, and the tool of Fona assessment also had restrictions.