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ALT text and basic accessibility

Authors:

Ben WeertsAuthors Info & Claims

BCS-HCI '07: Proceedings of the 21st British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: HCI...but not as we know it - Volume 2

Pages 71 - 74

Published: 03 September 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Recent surveys have shown that the majority of websites are not accessible. Despite legal obligations and the importance of the internet for disabled people, most websites fail to reach a basic level of accessibility, yet web developers are not short of accessibility guidelines and recommendations. This preliminary study consists of a meta-review of web accessibility studies in order to identify a set of common barriers faced by the impaired. Automated testing, of websites created by recent multimedia graduates in their final semester, confirms these problems. In particular non-use, and incorrect use, of ALT (alternative) text emerges as the most frequent, basic error. We conclude that ALT is a litmus test of developers' attitudes towards accessibility and propose future work to identify how to understand and improve these attitudes

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Cited By

Ruth-Janneck D(2011)Experienced barriers in web applications and their comparison to the WCAG guidelinesProceedings of the 7th conference on Workgroup Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Engineering of the Austrian Computer Society: information Quality in e-Health10.1007/978-3-642-25364-5_21(283-300)Online publication date: 25-Nov-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-25364-5_21
Mbipom GHarper SMehlenbacher BProtopsaltis AWilliams ASlattery S(2009)The transition from web content accessibility guidelines 1.0 to 2.0Proceedings of the 27th ACM international conference on Design of communication10.1145/1621995.1622003(37-44)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1621995.1622003

Index Terms

ALT text and basic accessibility
1. Applied computing
  1. Document management and text processing
    1. Document preparation
      1. Multi / mixed media creation
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction paradigms
      1. Hypertext / hypermedia

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Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

BCS-HCI '07: Proceedings of the 21st British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: HCI...but not as we know it - Volume 2

September 2007

270 pages

ISBN:9781902505954

Conference Chairs:
Tom Ormerod
Lancaster University, UK
,
Corina Sas
Lancaster University, UK

Publisher

BCS Learning & Development Ltd.

Swindon, United Kingdom

Publication History

Published: 03 September 2007

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Cited By

Ruth-Janneck D(2011)Experienced barriers in web applications and their comparison to the WCAG guidelinesProceedings of the 7th conference on Workgroup Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Engineering of the Austrian Computer Society: information Quality in e-Health10.1007/978-3-642-25364-5_21(283-300)Online publication date: 25-Nov-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-25364-5_21
Mbipom GHarper SMehlenbacher BProtopsaltis AWilliams ASlattery S(2009)The transition from web content accessibility guidelines 1.0 to 2.0Proceedings of the 27th ACM international conference on Design of communication10.1145/1621995.1622003(37-44)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1621995.1622003

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