Accessibility Study

Background

WCAG 2.1, or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1, is a set of internationally recognized standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to improve web accessibility. It builds on WCAG 2.0, focusing on making digital content more accessible to people with disabilities, including those with visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological impairments.

WCAG 2.1 is organized around four core principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR), ensuring content can be perceived, navigated, and understood by all users while remaining adaptable to assistive technologies.

The guidelines are categorized into three levels of conformance: A (basic), AA (recommended for most websites), and AAA (highest).

Results

  • All three Backcountry pages tested, the homepage, sales page and item page, failed to pass Level A and Level AA WCAG 2.1 checkpoints. Most failures occurred at guidelines 1.1.1, 1.3.1, 2.1.1, 2.4.4, and 4.1.2.

  • There were failures under all four WCAG principles, with the most failures (13) being under Principle 4 - Robust. Additionally, there were eight failures under Principle 1 – Perceivable, six failures under Principle 2 – Operable, and one failure under Principle 3 – Understandable.

  • The experience walkthrough resulted in two critical accessibility issues, one severe issue and two minor issues. The majority of these issues were found on the item page.

  • There were several issues that were found across all three pages tested as they shared similar formatting/content.

Overview

Brief

A comprehensive accessibility assessment was conducted on the Backcountry website to assess their compliance with WCAG 2.1 standards. It aimed to identify accessibility issues and provide recommendations for improvement to ensure legal compliance and inclusivity.

Role

This project was completed as a part of Kent State University’s UX design Master’s program.

Evaluation Methods

Automated code inspection

The website source code is inspected by a tool/software (SortSite) using a predefined set of rules - in this case, following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The inspection tool then produces a report that outlines the accessibility concerns found within the code.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are organized into three levels of conformance, level A, AA and AAA, with level A being the most basic level of accessibility compliance and level AAA being the highest level. It is important to note that websites that have level A issues may be completely unusable by people with certain disabilities.

Manual code inspection

This method uses an evaluator using assistive technologies such as keyboard-only navigation or screen reader software to identify any mobility or vision issues. For example, interactive elements of the page, such as buttons and links, are evaluated to ensure they are accessible and functional using only a keyboard. Additionally, images and multimedia are evaluated to ensure the presence of alt text and captions. The results of the automated code inspection can also serve as a reference for this type of assessment.

Experience walkthrough

This method involves a user interacting with a website (performing certain tasks/scenarios) to assess the website’s overall usability and accessibility. Similar to the manual code inspection tasks (except there is no code evaluation here), the user will use screen reader technology, voice commands, and keyboard-only navigation to test elements of the web page. Additionally, ease of navigation and clarity of content can be assessed here. This walkthrough offers a comprehensive and reasonably accurate perspective on what it is like for individuals with disabilities to navigate and use a website.

We employed three criteria for the experience walkthrough:

1. How well the site supports use of assistive devices such as screen readers,

2. The degree to which the site is navigable without a mouse or trackpad

3. Whether the pages allow a visitor with disabilities to understand where they are and what they can do.

Recommendations

  • Backcountry should address the techniques provided for each checkpoint failure to bring Backcountry webpages into Level A & Level AA WCAG compliance.

  • Modify the HTML formatting and implement dynamic content adjustments to resolve the accessibility issues identified during the experience walkthrough. Rectifying these issues will enhance the interaction for users relying on assistive technologies like screen readers and keyboard-only navigation.

  • Backcountry should focus on rectifying checkpoint failures within Principle 2 – Operable and Principle 4 - Robust, as the majority of issues are concentrated in these areas.

  • Give precedence to resolving level A issues over level AA. Level A issues can result in severe barriers for people with disabilities. Some website functions/content may be completely inaccessible when not in compliance with this most basic level. 33