Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• 'The new accessibility panic': Remaining challenges to the achievement of Australia's National Transition Strategy

  Denise Wood, Scott Hollier (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper examines the Australian Government's progress toward its 2010 National Transition Strategy (NTS), which mandated that all federal, state, and territory websites achieve WCAG 2.0 Level AA conformance by the end of 2014. Drawing on content a…

  • web accessibility
  • government accessibility
  • accessibility policy
  • WCAG compliance
  • accessibility training
  • PDF accessibility
  • captioning
  • accessibility testing
  • organizational accessibility

• On the Testability of WCAG 2.0 for Beginners

  Fernando Alonso, José Luis Fuertes, Ángel Lucas González, Loïc Martínez (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper investigates whether WCAG 2.0 success criteria are truly "reliably human testable" — one of the standard's key design goals — when the evaluators are beginners rather than experts. The W3C defines reliably human testable as meaning that at…

  • WCAG evaluation
  • accessibility education
  • testability
  • inter-rater reliability
  • manual testing
  • accessibility training

• Accessibility Challenges and Tool Features: An IBM Web Developer Perspective

  Shari Trewin, Brian Cragun, Cal Swart, Jonathan Brezin, John Richards (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This highly cited (50 citations) survey of 49 IBM web developers explores the barriers they face in creating accessible rich internet applications and what features they value in accessibility testing tools. IBM mandates accessibility through Corpora…

  • developer awareness
  • accessibility testing
  • evaluation tools
  • software development
  • accessibility training
  • developer experience
  • WCAG compliance
  • assistive technology

• Development and Trial of an Educational Tool to Support the Accessibility Evaluation Process

  Christopher Bailey, Elaine Pearson (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper describes the design, development, and first trial of the Accessibility Evaluation Assistant (AEA), a web-based knowledge management tool created at Teesside University to support novice auditors in conducting accessibility evaluations. Th…

  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility education
  • WCAG compliance
  • evaluation tools
  • novice auditors
  • structured walkthrough
  • accessibility training

• Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Tool to Support Novice Auditors

  Christopher Bailey, Elaine Pearson (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper evaluates the Accessibility Evaluation Assistant (AEA), a web-based knowledge management tool designed to help novice auditors conduct accessibility evaluations, by comparing it against standard WCAG 2.0 conformance review. The AEA was dev…

  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility education
  • WCAG compliance
  • evaluation tools
  • accessibility training
  • novice auditors
  • structured walkthrough

• "Bring your own problems": the path to WCAG 2.0 conformance through industry based training

  Denise Wood, Scott Hollier (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper examines Australia's National Transition Strategy (NTS), which mandated that all federal, state, and territory government websites conform to WCAG 2.0 by staged deadlines — Level A by December 2012 and Level AA by December 2014. The author…

  • accessibility training
  • WCAG compliance
  • government accessibility
  • professional development
  • web accessibility
  • policy implementation

• Creating Accessible Local Government: The Process

  Vivienne Conway, Keith Fitzpatrick (2017) — Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This short paper documents the end-to-end process the City of Cockburn, a local government authority in Western Australia, followed to develop an accessible replacement website. The paper provides a practical 9-step roadmap: (1) embed accessibility i…

  • government accessibility
  • WCAG compliance
  • procurement
  • organizational accessibility
  • case study
  • Australia
  • accessibility audit
  • user testing
  • accessibility training
  • project management
  • web development
  • content management
  • policy
  • mobile accessibility