I performed cognitive Web accessibility assessments on five more sites.  Two of them, both of organizations located in the United Kingdom, received all possible points.  The results for the rest were varied.

Assessed Sites and Scores

• Alzheimer’s Association, 3 of 10 points
• Council for Exceptional Children, 7 of 10 points
• Mencap, 10 of 10 points
• People First, 10 of 10 points
• Speaking For Ourselves, 6 of 10 points

View detailed results, assessment criteria and methodology.

Site Highlights

People First

The People First site features a large site-navigation menu (pictured below). For menu options, there are contextually-relevant icons, which are also used throughout the site.

Mencap

The Mencap site incorporates many captioned videos (example pictured below) as an alternative to text content, and relevant images to augment it.  The site’s My Life section is specifically designed for constituents, with plain language; simple navigation, and lots of images and videos.

Conclusion

Though the Web sites of Mencap and People First have minor problems, it is apparent the two organizations expended great effort to make them accessible to their constituencies.  I offer my congratulations.

Note: This post is part of a series on cognitive Web accessibility assessments.

I now have a database of results from my assessments of cognitive Web accessibility.  It is a work in progress.

I am displaying the database data on The Clear Helper Web site.  Because, to date, I have assessed only 2 of my planned 100 Web sites, few data are presented.  Yet it seems a good idea to start the database development and the data presentation now, partly in hope of soliciting feedback from followers of this project.

The assessments home page references two pages that display the same database data differently.  Its main purpose is to describe the assessment criteria and methodology.  I will use it to record any related changes I make as a result of what I learn from performing subsequent assessments.

Via table and pie chart, the first page shows Results By Numbers of Web Sites that meet the assessment criteria.

The second page shows summaries of Results By Web Site.  Each has the criteria met, the number of points recorded, and the conclusion. Seven of the criteria are based upon the sections of WebAIM’s Cognitive Web Accessibility Checklist.

A future page will show results by the guidelines that form the checklist’s sections.  It might be interesting to create a page of results by country.  It may be, for example, that cognitive-disability organizations in the countries of the U.K. are more likely than those in other countries to make their Web sites accessible to their constituencies.

I would like feedback.  If you have suggestions for how I can improve my related efforts, or for other ways to display the results, please post a comment or contact me.

This is a follow-up to my previous post that described my second structured assessment of cognitive Web accessibility.  The work’s progression can be seen via this blog’s Category of Cognitive Web Accessibility Assessments.

Assessment Scoring System Needed Revision

The result of the second structured assessment was that the Web site was inaccessible to people with developmental disabilities.  Had I followed my original assessment plan, the result would have been the opposite.  This is because of the plan’s scoring system.

I had intended to score one point if any Web site feature met even one guideline of each of the sections of WebAIM’s Cognitive Web Accessibility Checklist. While following this system during my second structured assessment, I realized it was too generous.  Points were adding up although it was obvious to me the site was likely inaccessible by people with developmental disabilities.

Consequently, I decided to average the number of guidelines that were met (successes) with those that were not (failures) for each checklist section.  Arbitrarily but within reason, I also decided an average success of 80% or higher would score one point.  I will apply this standard to future assessments unless I learn it is unworkable.

Assessments Require Significant Effort

When I developed my original assessment plan for 100 sites, I had been hoping the work could be performed quickly.  That was naive.  I now recognize much more work is needed.  Every relevant guideline in all of the checklist sections must be evaluated to portray a site’s cognitive Web accessibility as well as possible.  Indeed, because I evaluated all the relevant guidelines in the last (and only) structured assessments, comprehensive portrayals of the sites’ cognitive Web accessibility were produced.

Assessments Should Be Performed By Users

The cognitive accessibility of Web sites would be best assessed by users with cognitive disabilities.  I was reminded of this by Joe Chidzik after I posted my second structured assessment.  Specifically, his message was, “A site may be *likely* to cause accessibility issues, but to claim it does so without user testing isn’t helpful”.  Point taken.

Yet this assessment work, in part, is an attempt to find a uniform way for developers to help determine the cognitive accessibility of Web sites.  Of the many automated tools that help assess general Web accessibility, none are focused on cognitive Web accessibility.  WebAIM is pursuing funding to incorporate such assessment into its WAVE Web accessibility evaluation tool.  My work is an unofficial precursor to that.  I hope it will be helpful.

That said, I would like to include people with cognitive disabilities in this work.  Honestly though, I don’t know how to do it simply and economically.  (This project’s work is performed primarily on my own time and is unfunded.)  I am open to constructive suggestions.  Please post a comment with one.

This post is my second structured assessment of cognitive Web accessibility.  I describe how it is performed in my assessment plan.  It is less-detailed than my first assessment, but it again addresses every relevant guideline of WebAIM’s Cognitive Web Accessibility Checklist.

Web Site: National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities

Assessment

• Consistency. One point is awarded.
  • Success
    • Navigation is consistent throughout the site.
    • Similar interface elements and similar interactions do produce predictably similar results.
• Transformability. No point is awarded.
  • Success
    • Images are readable and comprehensible when enlarged (scaled to 200% and 300%).
    • Color alone is not used to convey content.
  • Failure
    • Increased text sizes (200% and 300%) are not supported by the navigation menu.
    • The disabling of styles is not supported.  On the home page, Latin (Lorem Ipsum) text appears, as well as non-contextually relevant links (“Sub-Link 1”, etc.).
• Multi-Modality. No point is recorded.
  • Success
    • Icons of top menu are contextually-relevant.
  • Failure
    • No video- or audio alternatives are provided for textual content.
    • No images are used to convey or to enhance content.
• Focus and Structure. One point is awarded.
  • Success
    • Distractions are avoided.
    • Stylistic differences are used conservatively to highlight important content.
    • Content is organized into well-defined groups.  Headings and lists are used.
    • White space is used for separation.
    • Background sounds are not used.
  • Failure
    • White space and visual design elements are not used to focus user attention.  Particularly because of the red background color of the menus, attention is instead focused on them.
• Readability and Language. No point is recorded.
  • Success
    • There is no tangential-, extraneous-, or irrelevant information.
    • Grammar and spelling are correct.
    • Tables of contents are provided for complex or lengthy content.
    • Text-readability criteria are met.
  • Failure
    • Language is not as simple as is appropriate for the content.
    • The reading level is inadequate for the audience (assuming it is people with developmental disabilities).
    • Jargon is used.
    • Expansion of abbreviations and acronyms is inconsistently implemented.
    • Text is not succinct.
• Orientation and Error Prevention/Recovery. No point is recorded.
  • One form was found.  It has only one field (password).  It fails assessment of the related checklist criteria.
• Assistive Technology Compatibility. No point is recorded.
  • Success
    • A logical heading structure is used consistently.
    • The navigation order is essentially logical.
  • Failure
    • Use of alternative text is inconsistent.  There is none for the images of the text-size changer.
    • Form labels: the only field on the one form is missing a label.
    • Links do not make sense out of context.  There are multiple “Learn More” links on the home page.
    • Keyboard accessibility is problematic.  Navigation menus are not visible via keyboard navigation.
    • Descriptive and informative titles are missing from many pages.
• The site attempts to meet W3C accessibility standards. One point is awarded.
• There is no accessibility statement. No point is awarded.
• There is no explanation about how to use accessibility features. No point is awarded.

Results

Three of ten points possible are recorded.

Conclusion

The Web site of The National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities is inaccessible to people with developmental disabilities.