Literature Review

This page is in progress. Contact the Silver Task Force or JaEun Jemma Ku(jku@illinois.edu) if you would like to contribute to this literature review page.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Objectives

Offer an overview of significant literature published on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines(WCAG)
Share what knowledge and ideas have been established on WCAG
Find what their strengths and weaknesses of existing researches on WCAG
Identify research gap as well as literature outside of accessibility professionals/researchers

Research Question Categories

WCAG Content, Structure, Conformance, Testing
WCAG Process: Creation, Maintenance, Communication
WCAG Adaptation/Evaluation
Game Accessibility
Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility (Cognitive Accessibility User Research)

Proposed Research Questions

We started this list of questions following TF brainstorming activities. Additional questions have been contributed by researchers.

Current State

The following questions relate to the current state—the effectiveness of W3C Accessibility Guidelines and supporting resources in their current form (including WCAG, UAAG and ATAG) in meeting their intended goals.

Supporting people with disabilities

How well does the current content of W3C Accessibility Guidelines meet the accessibility needs of people with disabilities?
What are the needs of people with disabilities who are under-served from a standards perspective?

Supporting stakeholders

How usable are W3C Accessibility Guidelines to different stakeholder groups?
- How well does the current structure of W3C Accessibility Guidelines serve different stakeholder groups?
- How well does the current structure of W3C Accessibility Guidelines support learning and remembering key principles of web accessibility?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines reference assistive technologies in the structure of the guidelines?
How well does the current conformance model for W3C Accessibility Guidelines serve accessibility for people with disabilities short-term and long-term?
How maintainable are W3C Accessibility Guidelines in their current form?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines support selection of tools for evaluating accessibility?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines support the creation of tools for evaluating accessibility?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines help platform vendors prioritize features that would help people with disabilities?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines communicate the benefits of creating web content and applications with accessibility in mind?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines communicate that accessibility supports business goals by expanding customer reach/growing revenue?
What are the main reasons why accessibility is not seen as on the critical path for product success?
What could W3C do to communicate the importance of accessibility to the business community?
How flexible are the current web accessibility standards in supporting emerging consumer technology trends?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines support recreational activities, such as games? What additional requirements/complications are involved?
How do W3C Accessibility Guidelines influence attitudes and biases related to accessibility and people with disabilities?
How well do W3C Accessibility Guidelines support online learning and learning management systems?

When organizations choose to produce adaptations of WCAG

What aspects of WCAG do people drop?
What aspects of WCAG are most important and why?
What aspects of WCAG do people think are missing?
What do people change about WCAG?
What things are reworded for clarity?

Understanding the guideline development process

How have guideline development initiatives outside the field of accessibility engaged and solicited feedback from all relevant stakeholders? What methods have been particularly effective or ineffective?
For guideline development initiatives, what have been the key drivers of the timeline (whether lag or potential speed efficiencies)?
What are the factors that determine effective (i.e. widespread) adoption of and compliance with a new set of guidelines?

What's needed?

Given what we know about the current state, how might we create more effective accessibility guidelines?

Where do we set the boundaries of what to cover in accessibility guidelines? (ex: things managed by platforms, assistive tech, etc.)
What platforms should we include in the accessibility guidelines?
What should be the scope of accessibility guidelines? (Web content, native, platforms, hardware, where do you stop?)
How might we make accessibility guidelines easier to use by different stakeholder groups?
- How might W3C Accessibility Guidelines support stakeholders become more knowledgeable about their relationship to and responsibility for accessibility?
- How might W3C Accessibility Guidelines make accessibility decision-making process more clear (straightforward)?
How might we make accessibility guidelines more maintainable?
How might we make accessibility guidelines address all types of disabilities?
How might we make conforming with guidelines more straightforward?
How might W3C Accessibility Guidelines make the process of keeping accessibility guidelines current achievable and timely?
How might me make accessibility guidelines that provide needed guidance for different roles & industries (e.g. developers, designers, policy makers, tool developers, education, platform developers)?
How might we make adoption of accessibility guidelines more straightforward (minimize disruption to process and practice and culture)?
How might we make accessibility guidelines that facilitate a real change in how society manages digital access for people with disabilities?
How might we make accessibility guidelines that clearly support and improve product quality? For example, double checking accessibility when new content is added to a learning management system?
How might we make accessibility guidelines that support accessibility best practices?
How might we make accessibility guidelines that support online learning?

How to Participate

We are currently building W3C Silver project group library using Citation software, a Zotero . Please contact JaEun Jemma Ku at jku@illinois.edu to contribute to the WCAG literature review group library (login/invitation required). Invitation will be sent upon request.

References

For more updated information, please visit W3C Silver Community group.