Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH

1. European Study on“Web accessibility in European countries: level of compliance with latest international accessibility specifications, notably WCAG 2.0, and approaches or plans to implement those specifications” A brief summary Lutz Kubitschke Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH Oxfordstr. 2, D - 53111 Bonn / Germany MEETING ON ACCESSIBILITY MONITORING AND SUPPORT, Madrid, 6th Nov. 2009

2. Research context • Funding: European Commission, DG INFSO • Duration: April – September 2009 • Partners: • empirica - Information & Communications Technology Research, Bonn • Work Research Centre, Dublin • EWORX, Athens MEETING ON ACCESSIBILITY MONITORING AND SUPPORT, Madrid, 6th Nov. 2009

3. Aims • Help to “to understand and compare the approaches followed by the European countries in order to identify good practices and future priorities“ in relation to web accessibility • Provide an overview on the current situation of web accessibility in European Countries, focusing on: • the level of compliance with international web accessibility specifications taking into account the latest specifications, notably WCAG 2.0; • approaches and plans for migrating towards such latest international specifications; • Derive good practice and make recommendations re transition to WCAG 2.0 MEETING ON ACCESSIBILITY MONITORING AND SUPPORT, Madrid, 6th Nov. 2009

4. Main methods • Collection of information on the national policy / implementation situations in selected Member States (DE, DK, ES, FR, IT, NL, SK, UK) through desk research and information provided by official contacts • Input from some members of the eInclusion Subgroup (AT, CH, EL) • Examination of compliance with WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 guidelines for a cross-country sample of websites: • 120 comparable web sites across 10 countries that were already tested in MeAC to enable time series data analysis (AT, DE, ES, FR, IE, IT, PT, UK, SE, US) • Automatic and manual assessment against WCAG 1.0 A • Manual assessment against WCAG 2.0 A MEETING ON ACCESSIBILITY MONITORING AND SUPPORT, Madrid, 6th Nov. 2009

5. Some key outcomes re compliance • No improvement in full compliance with WCAG 1.0 over time, but some signs of “hidden” progress: • sites passing automatic & manual test: 07=3.6%, 08=2.9%, 09=0% • sites pass automatic only: 07=11.8%, 08=20.0%, 09=22.5% • sites failed automatic testing only marginally: 07=15.5%, 08=18.1%, 09=14.7% • “Churn” in web accessibility: Sites that passed manual and/or automatic testing in one year did not pass in the following year • None of the sites sampled was fully compliant with WCAG 2.0, but sites that performed better in relation to WCAG 1.0 are likely to require less effort to comply with WCAG 2.0 • Government web sites perform better than public interest web sites in relation to both WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 MEETING ON ACCESSIBILITY MONITORING AND SUPPORT, Madrid, 6th Nov. 2009

6. Some key outcomes re national monitoring approaches • Some type of official effort regarding compliance monitoring has been observed in almost all countries, e.g. once-off studies or regular accessibility / eGovernment monitoring • The focus has largely been on WCAG 1.0 yet, and first experiences with WCAG 2.0 are becoming available only now • The scope in terms of types of web sites and governance levels covered varies across countries • Results of nationally available data are hardly comparable across countries due to variable samples and methods applied MEETING ON ACCESSIBILITY MONITORING AND SUPPORT, Madrid, 6th Nov. 2009