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1. Introducing Accessibility
2. Guidelines & Techniques
3. Managing Accessibility
4. Evaluating Accessibility
   1. Preliminary Review
   2. Conformance Evaluation
   3. Specific Contexts
   4. Involving Users
   5. Selecting Tools
   6. Tools List
   7. Review Teams
   8. »Reporting Template
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Template for Accessibility Evaluation Reports

Introduction

This document presents a recommended format for communicating results of the evaluation of Web site accessibility according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. A consistent and comprehensive evaluation report format can help ensure effective evaluations as well as accurate comparisons of accessibility levels over time and between different Web sites.

Suggested items in the report format may vary depending the context. Words in brackets [...] are intended to be filled in with information from the actual review. Related documents describing the evaluation method, and organization of review teams, are listed in the References section below.

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Template

summary - background - web site - reviewer(s) - review process - results & actions - references - appendices

1. Executive Summary

This report describes the conformance of the _______ Web site with W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. The review process is described in Section 5 below and is based on the W3C's Conformance Evaluation method as described in Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility.

Based on this evaluation, the ________ Web site [meets/ does not meet/ is close to meeting] WCAG 1.0, Conformance Level Double A. Detailed review results are available in Section 6 below. Resources for follow-up study are listed in Section 7 below. Feedback on this evaluation is welcome.

2. Background about Evaluation

Conformance evaluation of Web accessibility requires a combination of semi-automated evaluation tools and manual evaluation by an experienced reviewer. The evaluation results in this report are based on evaluation conducted on the following date(s): _______. The Web site may have changed since that time. Additional information on the evaluation process is available in Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility.

3. Web Site Reviewed

• [Name of Web site]
  • [and purpose of site, if relevant]
• [Base URL of site]
• [URL's included in review]
  • [if dynamically generated Web site, provide sample screen captures to demonstrate what was reviewed]
  • [indicate which pages were reviewed manually as opposed to by semi-automated evaluation tools]
• [URL's excluded from review]
• [Exact date, or range of dates, on which review conducted]
• [Natural language(s) of Web site]

4. Reviewer(s)

• [Name of reviewer or review team, unless anonymous]
• [Organization with which reviewer(s) is/are affiliated, if relevant and if not anonymous]
• [Contact information for reviewer(s) or reviewer(s) organization, unless anonymous]
  
• [Reviewer(s) areas of expertise, by reference to "expertise of review teams" in Review Teams for Evaluating Web Site Accessibility]
• [Natural language(s) with which reviewer(s) is/are fluent, or familiar]

5. Review Process

• [Identify WCAG 1.0 Level for which conformance was tested, e.g. WCAG 1.0 Level A, Double A, Triple A]
• [Used WCAG 1.0 checklist (essential)]
• [Identify evaluation and validation tools used, and versions thereof]
• [Description of manual reviews (usability testing of accessibility features) used]
  

6. Results and Recommended Actions

• [Interpretative summary of review results]
  • [e.g. this Web site appears to [meet/ not meet/ is close to meeting] WCAG 1.0 Level A, Double A, Triple A, etc.]
  • [accessibility features in which this site is strong include _______]
  • [recommended priorities for addressing inaccessible features of site]
• [Detailed results, structured according to WCAG 1.0 Checklist]
  • [include links to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints and Techniques for all non-conformant items]
  • [attach or link to specific reports in appendices, e.g. output of validators and evaluation tools]
  • [provide recommendations for addressing non-conformant checkpoints]
• [Describe or point to a suggested program of on-going monitoring of Web site accessibility, re-evaluation of authoring tools, etc.]

7. References

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/>
• Checklist for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html>
  
• Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/>
  
• Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility
  <http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/>
• Evaluation, Repair, and Transformation Tools for Web Content Accessibility
  <http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/existingtools.html>
• Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility [draft]
  <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/impl/software5.html>
  
• Review Teams for Evaluating Web Site Accessibility [draft]
  <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/review/reviewteams.html>
  

8. Appendices

• [Attach detailed validator and evaluation tool reports here]

[End of template]

Version note: Document currently being revised, will be updated in fall 2005.
Editors: Judy Brewer and the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG).

[Contacting WAI] Feedback welcome to wai-eo-editors@w3.org (a publicly archived list).

File (not content) last updated on $Date: 2006/02/03 14:07:07 $ by $Author: shawn $