An Analysis of Web Content Accessibility of Municipality Websites for People with Disabilities in Norway: Web Accessibility of Norwegian Municipality Websites

Abstract

Web accessibility is of crucial importance for people with disabilities to access online information and services in an effective manner. However, the lack of compliance with accessibility guidelines results in inequality in and exclusion from digital society. In this paper, we describe the problems of web accessibility identified in 356 municipality websites in Norway. The analysis has been carried out on the basis of the WCAG with two major evaluation tools: WAVE and TAW. Results show that none of the municipality websites meet an acceptable level of compliance. The websites violate an average of 40 checkpoints, of which many are Level A criteria that represent the minimum level of satisfaction of checkpoints. The most common violations are very low contrast, non-text content, empty button, missing form label, link purpose, info and relationships, and name, role, value criteria. Additionally, there is a weak negative correlation between the population of municipalities and the number of success criteria they violate.