Evaluating government website accessibility

Abstract

Purpose – This study seeks to provide insightful information about web accessibility based on human judgment in one Asian country (i.e. South Korea) in comparison to the USA. Design/methodology/approach – This study applies both the automated software tool and the human review of web content to measure website accessibility. Findings – Overall accessibility errors found from the Korean government websites are approximately two times higher than those from the US government websites. The accessibility errors are found in virtually every non-text information content group. Finally, results of the manual evaluation conducted by human experts show fewer accessibility errors than those found in the evaluation conducted by the automated software tool. Research limitations/implications – Because of the limited number of the websites evaluated and the automated software tools used in this study, the generalization of its findings may be inappropriate. However, the redundant accessibility errors identified by the automated software tools discussed in this study shall encourage research activities to improve these tools. Finally, a longitudinal study to identify effective mechanisms improving website accessibility and further studies on effects of cultural differences among countries on their website design would be useful. Practical implications – The high accessibility errors found from Korean Websites may suggest the need for legal enforcement or other additional mechanisms in Korea to improve web accessibility among Korean organizations. Originality/value – The results of this study can help experts efforts to implement policies to priovide equal internet opportunities for the elderly and the disabled.