Programmer-Focused Website Accessibility Evaluations
By Law, Chris; Jacko, Julie; Edwards, Paula; ASSETS 2005 - The Seventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 20-27Publication Date: October 2005
Paper on a 7-Step Streamlined Evaluation and Reporting Process for Accessibility (SERPA), aimed at website programmers. The authors contend that as programmers, rather than people with disabilities, are the end-users of website accessibility evaluations, such evaluations should be programmer-focused and addressed to them. The article recommends adjusting published accessibility evaluation approaches in order to better meet the needs of website programmers; by treating programmers as end-users of accessibility specialists’ outputs, the needs of people with functional limitations may be indirectly met. The 7 steps of the SERPA, which builds on already existing guidelines, e.g. by the World-Wide-Web Consortium (W3C), include (1) Discussing the needs and project goals with programmers and other team members, (2) Establishing accessibility scope and resources, (3) Preparing a programmer-centric report template, (4) Evaluating the website for accessibility, using screen readers/voice browsers such as JAWS, Window-Eyes and IBM Home Page Reader (HPR), (5) Reporting progress scores, (6) Eliminating unnecessary data from evaluations, e.g. numerous appendices, and (7) Follow-up after programmer changes have been made.
Assistive Products Discussed: HOME PAGE READER FOR WINDOWS
WINDOW-EYES PROFESSIONAL
JAWS FOR WINDOWS
Published by: Association for Computing Machinery (Website:http://www.acm.org)
SIGACCESS (ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing) (Web Site: http://www.sigaccess.org )
This publication is included in the library of the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC), accession number O16919
