European Internet Accessibility Observatory

A demonstrator for large scale accessibility benchmarking

Access for all to the Information Society is a key goal for the European Union. With increasing use of the World Wide Web – in particular for government information and services, it is essential to secure access for all citizens. Yet many people - especially those with a disability – meet barriers. Benchmarking can locate potential barriers and fuel the development towards Internet access for all.

The European Internet Accessibility Observatory (EIAO) project has established a large scale accessibility benchmarking service. The distributed system consisting of 9 servers can process 100 web sites per day according to 26 of the automatable tests specified in Unified Web Evaluation Methodology (UWEM 1.2).

Preliminary European Accessibility Benchmarking Scores

Benchmarking scores by country have been determined according to UWEM 1.2. The results from the first evaluation, carried out in February, March and April 2008 are shown in the following table.

See also a graphical display of the country scores .

Disclaimer

From some countries we collected and evaluated less than five web sites. Results from these countries have deliberately been removed as evaluation results from five or less web sites are too little data to give any statistical significance for the country.

The data presented here is provided for informational use only, and is based on an automated assessment of web site data to rate the content accessibility of a web site for users with disabilities. The system that produces the data has bugs, flaws, and omissions, both known and unknown. Data collection and assessment are performed over an extended time, and thus the score given to a web site may not correspond to the current state of that web site. Thus, the data may not be reliable, and there is no warranty for its accuracy and completeness. EIAO and its associated institutions offer no warranty and make no claim of usability or merchantability and cannot be held responsible for any damages, even in the case of negligence. You must bear the entire legal liability for damages stemming from your use or distribution of the data.

Technical Data

The results have been obtained following the methodology defined in Unified Web Evaluation Methodology 1.2 (UWEM) and its statistics companion as sampling is used. The assessment is intended to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG10). The evaluation results have been obtained following the methodology defined in UWEM and its statistics companion as sampling They are based on automatic testing only and therefore cover only the tests defined as automatable in UWEM the remaining ones In addition web sites' compliance with such accessibility tests does not guarantee successful experience for each web site visitor as this might be impacted by individual specific conditions or environment. Regarding the regional or sectoral representativeness, it is also currently limited by the sample of sites used in each category and the sample of pages used included in the evaluation from each site.

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