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Copyright © 2011 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark and document use rules apply.
This document specifies the Website Accessibility Evaluation Methodology for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This 2 November 2011 Editors Draft of Website Accessibility Evaluation Methodology for WCAG 2.0 is an initial outline for future refinement. This document is intended to be published and maintained as a W3C Working Group Note after review and refinement.
The WCAG 2.0 Evaluation Methodology Task Force (Eval TF) invites discussion and feedback about this document by developers, evaluators, researchers, and other practitioners who have interest in web accessibility evaluation. In particular, Eval TF is looking for feedback on the completeness of this outline.
Please send comments on this Website Accessibility Evaluation Methodology for WCAG 2.0 document to public-wai-evaltf@w3.org (publicly visible mailing list archive).
Publication as Editor Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
Editor note:General introduction to the document as a sort of executive summary.
This WCAG 2.0 Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) proposes an internationally harmonized methodology for evaluating the conformance of websites to WCAG 2.0. The Methodology supports evaluation in different contexts, such as self-assessment and third-party evaluation of websites. It is applicable to all websites (including web applications) regardless of size and it is independent of any particular evaluation tools, browsers, and assistive technology.
Editor note:This section describes the scope of this document. It is required for standards documents and does not describe the methodology.
The WCAG 2.0 Evaluation Methodology describes a harmonized way to evaluate the conformance of websites to WCAG 2.0. The Methodology defines manual and computer assisted methods for selecting representative samples of web pages from websites that include complete processes. It provides guidance for evaluating the selected web pages to WCAG 2.0, and defines methods for integration and aggregation of the evaluation results into structured reports and conformance claims. The Methodology provides guidance on evaluation throughout the development process but it is specifically designed for conformance evaluation of existing websites. It extends the existing WAI resource Conformance Evaluation of Websites for Accessibility. Complementary WAI resources such as Preliminary Review of Websites for Accessibility and Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility provide further advice on evaluation during other stages of the development process.
Editor note:Description of the target audience of the Methodology. We did some work for this in the requirements document.
Editor note:References to relevant groups for our work
Editor note:Terminology that is important for the understanding of the Methodology. General words and terms could be placed in the glossary at the end of the document. We already did some work in the requirements document like for website etc.
Editor note:What expertise should people have who use this Methodology
The W3C Evaluation suite extensively describes the expertise necessary for the evaluation of the accessibility of Web content for people with disabilities. Evaluation activities require diverse kinds of expertise and perspectives. Individuals evaluating the accessibility of web content require training and experience across a broad range of disciplines. A collaborative approach can bring better results for individuals evaluating web content. The W3C/WAI evaluation suite writes: "Effective evaluation of Web accessibility requires more than simply running an evaluation tool on a Web site. Comprehensive and effective evaluations require evaluators with an understanding of Web technologies, evaluation tools, barriers that people with disabilities experience, assistive technologies and approaches that people with disabilities use, and accessibility guidelines and techniques." This document describes evaluation methodology. Automatic evaluation can significantly reduce the time and effort needed for an evaluation but please note that many accessibility checks require human judgement and must be evaluated manually. This is described in this document.
Editor note:As discussed in the requirements discussion we wanted to address in the Methodology that involvement of users with disabilities is important. There is text about this in the eval suite on the WAI pages.
Editor note:How can an evaluator express the scope of a website. What is in and what can be left out? Below are some possible sections that cover things that look necessary to describe to pinpoint the exact scope of what is in and what can be left outside the scope of a website:
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Editor note:Imagine a website is large and the would like to divide the evaluation over different parts for which different people are responsible. If all parts are in the scope of the website, then the scope could be divided into multiple parts that all have to be evaluated.
Editor note:An evaluator can manually evaluate all pages, but on website with 9M pages that is a lot of work. How to select a sample of a website is described in this section. How many pages and how do you choose them?
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Editor note:This is the section describing step by step how to do the evaluation. The evaluation is depending on many factors, like technologies used, technologies evaluated, Accessibility supported etc. Part of the story is the barrier that are encountered during evaluation. When are they a real problem? Is it possible to have an error margin and how do we describe that?
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Editor note:This section is largely from WCAG 2.0 with additional information.
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Editor note:How to write a report from the evaluation that is human readable and one that is machine readable. And what should be in the report. Templates are included in the appendices.
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Editor note:Glossary for this document and link to general glossary for WCAG 2.0.
Editor note:Further reading.
Editor note:a complete example template for evaluation reporting.
Editor note:a complete example template for evaluation reporting using EARL.