Evaluating the Accessibility of Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland

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Master

Reference

Evaluating the Accessibility of Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland

PONTUS, Volha

Abstract

This large-scale study provides a general picture of web accessibility in the air transport industry serving Switzerland, with an emphasis on language-related issues and multilingual accessibility. A sample of 50 corporate home pages was evaluated for accessibility regarding their English, French, and German versions using a combination of assessment methods, namely automated testing on all sites and manual testing on a smaller selection of 10 sites.

The web accessibility statements for the entire sample were also individually evaluated and compared with the results from the automated evaluation. Accessibility levels, as per the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, varied depending on the language version of the site evaluated, with fewer errors related to accessibility on English-language versions and more errors in the French- and German-language versions. No correlation was found between the existence of an accessibility statement on a site and that site's level of accessibility in automated tests.

PONTUS, Volha. Evaluating the Accessibility of Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland. Master : Univ. Genève, 2019

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:126286

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

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Volha Pontus

Evaluating the Accessibility of

Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland

Directrice: Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez Jurée: Lucía Morado Vázquez

Mémoire présenté à la Faculté de traduction et d’interprétation (Département de Traitement Informatique Multilingue) pour l’obtention de la Maîtrise universitaire en traitement

informatique multilingue.

Université de Genève Année Académique 2018–2019

Août 2019

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Déclaration attestant le caractère original du travail effectué

J’affirme avoir pris connaissance des documents d’information et de prévention du plagiat émis par l’Université de Genève et la Faculté de traduction et d’interprétation (notamment la Directive en matière de plagiat des étudiant-e-s, le Règlement d’études de la Faculté de traduction et d’interprétation ainsi que l’Aide-mémoire à l’intention des étudiants préparant un mémoire de Ma en traduction).

J’atteste que ce travail est le fruit d’un travail personnel et a été rédigé de manière autonome.

Je déclare que toutes les sources d’information utilisées sont citées de manière complète et précise, y compris les sources sur Internet.

Je suis consciente que le fait de ne pas citer une source ou de ne pas la citer correctement est constitutif de plagiat et que le plagiat est considéré comme une faute grave au sein de l’Université, passible de sanctions.

Au vu de ce qui précède, je déclare sur l’honneur que le présent travail est original.

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Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez.

Silvia guided me in the process of writing this thesis from the very beginning until the end.

Silvia amazed me with her positivity, kindness and patience throughout the process, and always found time to meet with me and discuss any questions I had. Silvia was also the person who kept me inspired in my work.

I wish to thank Lucía Morado Vázquez for awakening an interest in me for the topics of localisation and accessibility. It was in one of her classes that I first became familiar with web accessibility and realised I wanted to carry out research in this field.

I am grateful to Violeta Seretan for teaching me the fundamentals of research work as well as the practicalities of oral presentations.

I would also like to thank my university friend and colleague Ilona Isch for our interesting discussions and for her support along this road.

My heartfelt thanks to Denise, who spent many hours proofreading this thesis.

Finally, I wish to thank my wonderful husband. I am deeply grateful for his support and encouragement throughout this long and at times difficult period.

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The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

― Goethe

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Abstract

This large-scale study of 50 airline websites aims to provide a general picture of web accessibility in the air transport industry serving Switzerland, with emphasis on language- related issues and multilingual accessibility. A sample of airline company home pages was evaluated for accessibility regarding their English, French, and German versions using a combination of assessment methods, namely automated testing on all sites and manual testing on a smaller selection of 10 sites. The web accessibility statements for the entire airline sample were also individually evaluated and compared with the results from the automated evaluation. The results suggest a low level of web accessibility in the airline sector sample, which is consistent with other studies on the private sector. Web accessibility levels, as per the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, also varied depending on the language version of the site evaluated, with fewer errors related to accessibility on English-language versions of airline websites and more errors in the French- and German-language versions. No correlation was found between the existence of an accessibility statement on a site and that site’s level of accessibility in automated tests.

Keywords: web accessibility, localisation, WCAG 2.1, multilingual websites, multilingual accessibility, usability, airline websites, web accessibility evaluation.

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List of Tables

Table 1.1. Types of Impairment (Based on Harper and Yesilada Classifications) ... 5

Table 1.2. Research Questions for This Study, With Associated Hypotheses ... 10

Table 2.1. Usability Considerations for Multilingual Sites ... 28

Table 2.2. Combinations of Accessibility Scenarios (Source Language vs. Target Language) ... 31

Table 3.1. WAVE Algorithm for 22 Predefined Errors, With Explanations for Each ... 57

Table 3.2. Manual Criteria for WAE Stage 2 ... 64

Table 3.3. WCAG Criteria Excluded From Manual Criteria ... 65

Table 3.4. Five Performance Brackets Based on Number of Accessibility Errors ... 68

Table 3.5. Scoring Key for Accessibility Statements ... 81

Table 4.1. Number of Errors Found by Automated Testing Using WAVE (WAE Stage 1) ... 85

Table 4.2. WAE Stage 1 Results by Performance Bracket ... 87

Table 4.3. Types of WAE Stage 1 Errors by Category (all sample) ... 88

Table 4.4. Overview Manual Testing Results of WAE Stage 2 (MC1–MC10) ... 90

Table 4.5. Detailed Manual Testing Results of WAE Stage 2 (MC1-MC10) ... 91

Table 4.6. WAE Stage 2 Results by Error Category/Type ... 91

Table 4.7. Accessibility Differences by Language Version in WAE Stage 1 ... 93

Table 4.8. Breakdown of Differences in Language Version Results for WAE Stage 2 ... 94

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1. The interface of Bobby, a now-defunct automated accessibility evaluation tool. . 21

Figure 2.2. The interface of AChecker, an automated accessibility evaluation tool. ... 21

Figure 3.1. Overview of study design and evaluation stages. ... 53

Figure 3.2. Timeline for the WAE stages. ... 53

Figure 3.3. WAVE interface overview for testing a web page online. ... 55

Figure 3.4. WAVE interface overview for testing a web page via a Chrome browser extension. ... 55

Figure 3.5. WAVE results breakdown by error, alerts and other flags. ... 56

Figure 3.6. Demonstration of overlay flags in WAVE. ... 56

Figure 3.7. Empty <h2> tag identified in code via WAVE. ... 57

Figure 3.8. Alt attributes example from Ethiopian Airlines. ... 70

Figure 3.9. Example of an image without an alt attribute. ... 70

Figure 3.10. Example of a bypass block on the Brussels Airlines website. ... 72

Figure 3.11. Example of page title code on Brussels Airlines. ... 73

Figure 3.12. Example of page language code for Swiss International Air Lines. ... 75

Figure 3.13. Example with form error notices in text from Brussels Airlines. ... 77

Figure 4.1. Number of airlines and median number of errors by performance groupings. ... 87

Figure 4.2. Ethiopian Airlines webpage for FR speakers, with page language coded as EN. . 97

Figure 4.3. Ryanair language selector, in English, on its French-language webpage. ... 98

Figure 4.4. Correlation between quality of 50 web accessibility statements and errors. ... 100

Figure 4.5. Correlation between 15 airline accessibility statements and number of errors. .. 101

Figure 4.6. Errors associated with form inputs in EN, FR, and DE versions of the sample. . 103

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List of Abbreviations

AT Assistive Technology

CMS Content Management System EN/FR/DE English/French/German

GILT Globalisation, Internationalisation, Localisation and Translation HTML Hypertext Markup Language

ICF International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (WHO) ISO International Organization for Standardization

LISA Localisation Industry Standards Association MC Manual Criterion/Criteria (chosen for this study) W3C World Wide Web Consortium

WAE Web Accessibility Evaluation

WAI Web Accessibility Initiative (a division of W3C)

WAVE brand name for a web accessibility evaluation tool developed by WebAIM.org WebAIM Web Accessibility In Mind

WCAG Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (developed by WAI) WHO World Health Organization

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization URL Universal Resource Locator (colloquially, a website address)

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1 Introduction

1.1 Overview

This thesis examines the web accessibility of 50 airline companies doing business in Switzerland. It focuses on the language aspects of accessibility as a subset of general accessibility and localisation, with an emphasis on visual impairments. Using both automated and manual testing, this study analyses a selection of airline websites to determine their performance according to defined criteria for accessibility and identifies specific challenges from the standpoint of multilingual accessibility. It aims to highlight some difficulties faced by consumer-focused companies in producing and managing accessible, multilingual web content.

1.2 Research context

Disabilities adversely affect individuals’ ability to interact with websites and web content. Making web content accessible can help people with disabilities to be active users of the internet, consume goods and services available online, satisfy their needs for communication, and therefore interact more fully with society. At the outset of the study, it is important to understand what “web accessibility” is and what a “disability” is, including the types of specific impairments that are most relevant to web accessibility.

1.2.1 Web accessibility

The Oxford English Dictionary defines accessibility generally as the quality of being

“able to be received, acquired, or made use of” and of being “open or available to a particular class of person.”¹ Under this definition, material should be “able to be readily understood or appreciated.” This thesis concerns web accessibility alone, rather than the accessibility of places, modes of transport, or buildings in the physical world. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) states that “web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them” (Henry 2018).

For web resources to meet WAI criteria for accessibility, people with disabilities must be able to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with, as well as contribute to, web

1 Oxford Dictionaries, s.v. “accessibility,” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/accessibility (accessed 31 March 2019).

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content. The WAI definition appears to be generally accepted in the literature and is reflected in the definitions others have adopted. Slatin and Rush (2002, 3) consider that “websites are accessible when individuals with disabilities can access and use them as effectively as people who do not have disabilities.” ISO standard 9241-171:2008(en) refers to the “usability of a product, service, environment or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities” (ISO 2008). Under this approach, “the concept of accessibility addresses the full range of user capabilities and is not limited to users who are formally recognized as having a disability”

(ibid., sec. 3.2). Instead, usability “aims to achieve levels of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction that are as high as possible considering the specified context of use” (ibid., sec.

3.6). This implies that a product, application, or interface should be usable regardless of the individual adjustments or the assistive technology the user may require or prefer. Thatcher et al. (2003, 8) sums up this concept of usable accessibility, noting that “a user interface [should]

be effective, efficient and satisfying for more people in more situations.” This proposition agrees with that advanced by Tim Berners-Lee, widely recognised as the inventor of the World Wide Web, who observes that the “power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect” (Henry 2018).

1.2.2 Disability and impairment

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) of the World Health Organization (WHO) defines disability as an umbrella term for impairments, limitations on activity, and restrictions on participation. The term denotes the negative aspects of the interaction between an individual with a health condition and what the ICF terms the individual’s contextual factors (World Health Organization 2001, 221). Contextual factors include both environmental factors and personal factors. Environmental factors concern the human-made physical world, other people in different relationships and roles, often with different attitudes and values, social systems and services, and policies, rules and laws. In contrast, personal factors concern the individual, such as age, gender, social status, and unique life experiences (2001, 221–22). With regard to this definition, one can clearly identify web accessibility as an environmental factor affecting interaction between a person and the modern world.

The WHO definition is consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The preamble of the Convention states that “disability is an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and

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attitudinal and environmental barriers” (United Nations 2007). Article 1 of the Convention also states that “persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others” (ibid.).

Various legal definitions of disability, including those in Swiss law, are important when one considers formal rights and obligations. See, for example, the Federal Act on the Elimination of Inequalities for Persons with Disabilities of 13 December 2002 (151.3 Loi fédérale du 13 décembre 2002 sur l’élimination des inégalités frappant les personnes handicapées). The Act (2002) states that:

A person with a disability . . . is defined as any person whose bodily, mental or psychological impairment is presumed to be durable and that prevents him from performing the acts of daily life, of maintaining social contacts, of moving, of following training or continuing training or to exercise a professional activity, or otherwise hindering the performance of these activities. (Article 2.1)

The Federal Statistical Office of Switzerland provides its own interpretation of the concept, explaining that one can “speak of disability when a health problem affects the functions and anatomical structures of the person, his ability to perform certain activities or his performance in his social environment. Disability is therefore not only a biological problem, but also a social problem.”²

Disabilities affect a significant proportion of the global and the Swiss populations.

According to WHO, more than a billion people live with some form of disability (World Health Organization 2011). This accounts for approximately 15% of the world population and represents a significant increase since an earlier WHO estimate, which placed the figure at 10%

in the 1970s.³ One reason for this growth is a significant trend towards an aging population, with longer lives and decreased birth rates in many countries.

The stereotypical disabled person is a wheelchair user, or perhaps a blind or deaf person.

WHO emphasises, however, that “the disability experience results from the interaction of health conditions, personal factors, and environmental factors and varies greatly” (ibid., 7).

WHO draws attention to the fact that “disability is part of the human condition—almost

2 “Handicaps,” Office fédéral de la statistique, Confédération suisse,

https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/sante/etat-sante/handicaps.html (accessed 13 May 2019).

3 In the 1970s, WHO estimated that approximately 10% of the global population lived with a disability, https://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/ (accessed 13 May 2019).

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everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive to old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning” (ibid.).

Similarly, WHO (2011) indicates that a lack of accessibility is a key disabling barrier.

It suggests that “people with disabilities have significantly lower rates of information and communication technology use than non-disabled people, and in some cases they may be unable to access even basic products and services such as telephones, television, and the Internet” (ibid., 172).

The Swiss Statistical Office has estimated that, out of a population of 8.4 million, the number of persons with some type of disability in Switzerland is 1.8 million (2017). Of these, 26% may be considered severely disabled. This figure includes people living in homes or specialised institutions (which constitute approximately 2% of the resident population). The Swiss Health Survey, carried out in 2017, made the following calculations with regard to the types of disabilities experienced by people in Switzerland. It estimated that approximately 77,000 individuals have a visual impairment, 78,000 a hearing disability, 67,000 a locomotion disability and, finally, 28,000 have a speech disability.⁴

The numbers presented thus far clearly demonstrate the importance of web accessibility. Given the assumption that 1.8 million people within a Swiss population of over eight million are disabled, they constitute a considerable proportion of all consumers in the country.

1.2.2.1 Types of impairment

It is important to address the different types of impairment that may fall within the definition of disability. It is convenient to cite the classification for disabilities provided by Harper and Yesilada (2008). Their classification is based on various types of impairments commonly recognised in the literature and by the international community. Table 1.1 shows the five types of impairments that Harper and Yesilada (2008, 3–58) identify:

4 More information about the survey is available at “Handicaps,” Office fédéral de la statistique, Confédération suisse, https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/sante/etat-sante/handicaps.html (accessed 13 May 2019).

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Table 1.1. Types of Impairment (Based on Harper and Yesilada Classifications)

Impairment Type Description

Visual Impairments Visual impairments are present in an individual when the physiological processes that support key visual capabilities such as visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and field of view are damaged or do not function as they should. Visual impairments constitute the principal interest in this study and will be looked at in greater detail in the following sections.

Cognitive and Learning Impairments

These disabilities are very diverse; one reason is that the human cognitive apparatus is extremely complex and multifaceted, and there can be various cognitive functions whose operation can be impaired. There are also multiple causes for such impairments.

Hearing Impairments These types of impairment are characterised by varying degrees of hearing loss, some resulting in the need (for example) to use sign language to communicate.

Physical Impairments These impairments are characterised by movement disorders, which can affect computer and web access. This group is the second largest accessibility group, following cognitive impairments.

Age-Related Impairments The changes that emerge with age can affect interaction with the internet. Such health changes can include impairments associated with diminished vision, hearing loss, reduced attention, and memory and learning difficulties. These impairments may be seen as a combination of impairments occurring in other types.

Depending on the type of impairment an individual has, his or her needs for assistive technology (AT) will differ in the context of web use. A person with a locomotive disability, for example, may not need any special aids to access web content if her fine motor skills are unaffected. A person who is deaf, on the other hand, may need no assistance for static web pages or visually based online services (such as internet banking) but may need additional functionality (such as subtitles) to deal with audiovisual content.

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1.2.2.2 Assistive technology

WHO, in its International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) publication, defines assistive products and technology as “any product, instrument, equipment or technology adapted or specially designed for improving the functioning of a disabled person” (2001, 108). The United States National Multiple Sclerosis Society offers a different definition for assistive products and technology, as follows (Connor 2012, 34): “all of the tools, products, and devices, from the simplest to the most complex, that can make a particular function easier or possible to perform.” Both definitions share a number of similarities that add up to the idea that AT is simply a tool or instrument that makes it possible or easier to overcome specific barriers.

WHO (2001, 183) defines several types of assistive products and technology for communication. Among them we find the following: “products and technologies that assist people to send and receive information, such as specialized vision devices, electro-optical devices, specialized writing devices, drawing or handwriting devices, signalling systems and special computer software and hardware, cochlear implants, hearing aids, FM auditory trainers, voice prosthesis, communication boards, glasses and contact lenses.”

This study focuses, as indicated, on persons with visual impairments. The principal assistive device for this group to navigate the web is the screen reader, which is software that identifies what is onscreen and outputs this data as speech (Connor 2012, 34). When a user navigates web content with the keyboard and items come into focus, the screen reader reads out the information in question. It can also be used to open items, interrogate page objects (such as drop-down menus), or navigate backwards and forwards. Various screen readers are available on the market, in both free versions and proprietary versions that must be purchased.⁵

1.2.2.3 Visual impairment as a research focus

This study focuses on persons with visual impairments, for the following reasons.

Statistically blind people represent a significant group within the overall number of people with disabilities. As indicated in Section 1.2.2, in Switzerland this group accounts for about 77,000

5 The best-known screen readers are JAWS, Window-Eyes, the Linux screen reader (ORCA), free NVDA, and VoiceOver (Connor 2012, 35).

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people. According to the information provided by WHO in October 2018, there are approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide who have some form of vision impairment (2018).

Cunningham (2012) emphasises the visual nature of the internet as a medium and notes that most efforts to make a website accessible therefore fall under the area of visual accessibility. Furthermore, she gives several reasons why the blind are particularly affected by an inaccessible web: “a page might be structured in a way that’s nonsensical if a user is using a screen reader. They might miss out on vital information in a graph or image. They might have to sit through listening to the navigation with every page load” (Cunningham 2012, 1).

Cunningham suggests that complete blindness can be determined using two different perspectives: a legal one, when, for example, a person must wear glasses to be able to drive, and a medical one, when a person has lost all sight. The author also suggests her own definition for a completely blind person: “a user who is using a screen reader to access websites” (2012, 1). The reason why the definition specifies that a blind user is a person using a screen reader, rather than a person who has lost all sight, is that often people who have extremely low vision or people who have difficulty processing written information choose to use a screen reader. For the purpose of this study, the researcher considers not only the category of blind people but also people with various visual impairments, because, as Cunningham specifies, “visual accessibility isn’t limited to just the blind. Those with low vision or colour blindness can also have issues when it comes to using websites” (2012, 29).

The evidence presented thus far supports the idea that persons with visual impairments can benefit greatly from a more accessible web; therefore, this study concentrates on this group of people in particular.

1.2.3 Accessibility and languages

Disabilities obviously affect people’s lives regardless of their language and location. In a world with more than 6,500 languages, there is of course significant demand for web content to be produced in many different languages (Hammarström 2016). Hundreds of languages are recognised for use on the internet, the most predominant excluding English, in order of numbers of users, being Russian, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, Persian, Polish, Chinese, and Turkish (Pimienta, Prado, and Blanco 2009). UNESCO research demonstrates significant growth in non-English sites since the 1990s, with English accounting for some 75% of all sites in 1998 but only approximately 45% of sites in 2007 (ibid., 33).

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Many internet users naturally prefer to consume content in their own language (DePalma, Sargent, and Stewart 2014) and, given this, it can be expected that increasing proportions of web content will be localised or translated for use in other languages. Most corporate sites and global brands, including airlines and hotels, segment their online content into different regional and language channels. For such content to be accessible, it must provide the same accessibility outcomes as monolingual or non-localised content.

Persons with disabilities should have an expectation that the accessibility features they rely on will be available in their preferred language. As will be demonstrated, however, accessible multilingual content presents practical challenges that have received little attention from academics and industry professionals. Some questions emerge. What are these challenges? Are accessibility outcomes uniform regardless of the language of content? If not, how do accessibility outcomes differ, for instance, depending on the language of a site? How do corporations and web professionals deal with accessibility in the context of multilingual content? As businesses increasingly channel consumers toward the internet for products and services, and as the proportion of the population with disabilities grows, these broad questions of multilingual communications management become increasingly relevant. Indeed, such questions have particular relevance for Switzerland, with four national languages, and for the airline industry in general, which serves customers from a wide range of regions.

1.3 Motivation and intended contribution

Much has been written on web accessibility in recent years, with many researchers highlighting the poor performance of government and institutional sites in meeting accessibility standards. This study aims to contribute to the field of multilingual accessibility outcomes with a large-scale accessibility study on the private sector, with a specific focus on the airline industry in Switzerland. As Chapter 2 will demonstrate, most research in the field of web accessibility has concentrated on the public sector (Section 2.4.1), with few studies investigating the private sector, and, to this researcher’s knowledge, none addressing accessibility in the airline sector. This study will adopt a practical approach, building on earlier studies cited in Chapter 2, and apply a combination of evaluation methods. Unlike other large- scale studies, this study will examine different language versions of the sampled corporate websites, in English, French, and German. Key multilingual accessibility issues will then be examined to assess whether accessibility outcomes differ by language version. The study will

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examine 50 airline websites using automated testing, with a refined selection of 10 of these websites manually examined according to defined criteria.

The research is intended to further reinforce the proposition, asserted in earlier work, that accessibility in multilingual content poses special problems that require special attention.

Far from being obscure issues, these challenges apply to a significant proportion of the global and Swiss population. They are also relevant to businesses, which must comply with revised legislative requirements for web accessibility in many countries (see Section 2.1.1.2) and should ideally seek to serve all consumers effectively, regardless of disability. This study aims to improve understanding and awareness of the multilingual and language aspects of accessibility in ways that benefit users who face accessibility problems on corporate websites.

It should also benefit professionals who maintain and improve these corporate websites.

1.4 Research questions

This thesis has three main research questions (R1, R2, and R3), which we aim to answer through three different web accessibility evaluation (WAE) stages. The first question aims to develop a general picture of how the airline industry is currently doing in terms of web accessibility. R1 is formulated as follows:

(R1) What is the degree of general web accessibility performance achieved by the airline sectorwhen assessed through automated testing? (WAE Stage 1)

The second question focuses particularly on the issue of multilingual accessibility through the prism of a second, and different, testing technique. Specifically:

(R2) What is the degree of multilingual web accessibility achieved by the airline sector when assessed through manual testing? (WAE Stage 2)

The last question aims to evaluate whether the presence of a written accessibility statement on the assessed websites has a relationship with the general level of accessibility:

(R3) Does the presence of an accessibility statement correlate with general web accessibility performance in the airline sector sample? (WAE Stage 3)

Linked to the research questions, there are four hypothesis statements, which are H1, H2A, H2B, and H3. These are detailed in the Table 1.2 below:

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Table 1.2. Research Questions for This Study, With Associated Hypotheses

R1 H1 More than 80% of the airline sector sample will fail one or more WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) criteria for Levels A and AA for general web accessibility, when assessed with automated testing.

R2 H2A Multilingual web accessibility performances of sites in the airline sector sample will vary depending on the language version tested.

R2 H2B There are fewer errors related to multilingual web accessibility in the EN version than in the FR- and DE-language versions of sites in the airline sector sample.

R3 H3 The presence of an accessibility statement has a poor relationship with general web accessibility performance for the airline sector sample.

1.5 Methodology

To evaluate the level of general accessibility of airline websites (R1 and R2), this study applies a combination of automated and manual testing techniques. For automated testing, identified in the context of this thesis as WAE Stage 1, 50 airline home pages were tested using the WAVE accessibility tool in each of their English-, French-, and German-language versions.

Errors found by WAVE were categorised, put in tables, and compared by language. For manual testing, identified as WAE Stage 2, 10 airline home pages were selected (based on WAE Stage 1 results) and manually tested in their English-, French- and German-language versions using defined criteria based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (Kirkpatrick et al. 2018) developed within the framework of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI),⁶ as well as ad hoc selection of usability and localisation concepts. For the manual testing parameters, the research concentrates on the most relevant issues in web accessibility for persons with visual impairments, as identified in related work. These results were similarly categorised, tabulated, and compared by language. For WAE Stage 3, which examines the use of accessibility statements, 50 airline websites were examined for the presence of accessibility

6 More information about the Web Accessibility Initiative can be found at https://www.w3.org/WAI/ (accessed 29 June 2019).

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statements (or equivalent accessibility information), which were scored according to a defined scale. This scale was then compared with the results of WAE Stage 1 to determine if any correlation could be identified.

1.6 Thesis structure

This chapter has introduced the research context of this thesis and its objectives.

Chapter 2 provides a general overview of the concepts used as well as a review of the literature on approaches to accessibility and related subjects. Chapter 3 provides the methodological basis and a detailed account of how the research was performed for WAE Stages 1, 2, and 3.

Chapter 4 presents the results of the research and initiates a discussion. Chapter 5 summarises the main findings of the work and also examines limitations and possible directions for future research.

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2 Fundamentals and Related Work

This chapter provides the fundamentals and the theoretical framework for the study, explaining essential concepts and the existing work on multilingual web accessibility. The chapter is divided into four sections that follow this introduction. The first, Section 2.1 (Fundamentals), introduces key concepts of web accessibility and briefly examines contemporary accessibility standards and legislation. It also provides an overview of the ways researchers typically evaluate accessibility. Sections 2.2 (Multilingual Web Accessibility) and 2.3 (Web Accessibility and Localisation) introduce multilingual web accessibility as an area for specific attention and illustrate the relationship between web accessibility and localisation.

The final section, Section 2.4 (Related Work), reviews the existing literature on web accessibility in two arenas: large-scale studies and studies with multilingual elements.

2.1 Fundamentals

2.1.1 Web accessibility standards

“Web accessibility” has been defined earlier in Chapter 1 for the purpose of this thesis.

It should be noted that, in practice, web content is usually considered “accessible” when it meets the contemporary standards available to assess it. These standards can be taken from accessibility guidelines, usability principles, or legal definitions, and are important to any technical study of accessibility. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a standard as “the authorized exemplar of a unit of measurement” or “a required or agreed level of quality or attainment.”⁷ Web accessibility is assessed or measured against specific standards, commonly as set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and legislation. Most recent legislation—

both national and international—relies on the W3C standards, which will be reviewed first.

2.1.1.1 W3C and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

It is generally accepted that the main standards for the web are those that have been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with guidelines on web accessibility prepared by its specialist division called the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This thesis takes as one of its pillars the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed by

7 Oxford Dictionaries, s.v. “standard,” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/standard (accessed 14 April 2019).

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WAI, which have the stated goal of “providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally” (Henry 2018).

WCAG is arranged around four main principles, which roughly describe outcomes for accessible web content. Content should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (Cooper, Kirkpatrick, and Connor 2016b). Reid and Snow-Weaver (2008) explain these principles as follows:

• information and functionality must be presented in ways that users can perceive;

• interactive functionality must be available in ways that users can operate;

• information and functionality must be understandable; and

• information and functionality must be able to be rendered reliably (i.e., “robustly”) by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

Each of these principles contains corresponding guidelines and “Success Criteria” that help to tailor these principles to people with disabilities (Cooper, Kirkpatrick, and Connor 2016b). WCAG 2.1 (Kirkpatrick et al. 2018), the most recent version of WCAG published on 5 June 2018, contains a total of 13 guidelines and is the reference version for the purpose of this thesis.⁸

Within existing WCAG guidelines, Success Criteria can be defined “as general conditions that need to be satisfied” (Reid and Snow-Weaver 2008). Consequently, content can be judged for “conformance” in light of these testable success criteria (Cooper, Kirkpatrick, and Connor 2016b). Conformance itself is defined by WCAG as the circumstance of

“satisfying all the requirements of a given standard, guideline or specification” (ibid.). There are three levels of conformance for WCAG: Level A (the lowest category), Level AA (the intermediate category), and Level AAA (the highest category). A site conforming at Level A, for example, would mean that “the Web page satisfies all the Level A Success Criteria” (ibid., emphasis added). Accordingly, if that site does not meet one or two Success Criteria at Level A, the site could therefore be said not to conform to WCAG and would not be “accessible”

8 The complete list of guidelines can be found at https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ (accessed 19 April 2019).

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from WCAG’s standpoint. Levels AA and AAA are cumulative, so that, to conform to Level AAA for example, a site must satisfy all the Success Criteria for Levels A and AA.⁹

2.1.1.2 Legislative requirements

2.1.1.2.1 Switzerland

In Switzerland, web accessibility is regulated under the Loi fédérale du 13 décembre 2002 sur l’élimination des inégalités frappant les personnes handicapées (151.3) (2002), which translates to the “Federal Law of 13 December 2002 on the elimination of inequalities affecting people with disabilities.” For “public authorities” and online services, article 14(2) states as follows:

To the extent that the [public] authorities offer their services on the Internet, access to these services should not be made difficult for the visually impaired. The Federal Council issues the necessary technical prescriptions. It can declare mandatory technical standards established by private organizations.

Article 14(2) applies only to public authorities and, importantly, does not require that websites to be equally accessible to all groups, just that “access should not be made difficult for the visually impaired.” It does not consider other groups of users in its requirements. The Federal Council is responsible for declaring the technical standard to be met and it is stated that this could be a standard produced by a private organisation, for which W3C and WCAG would be an obvious possibility. In the view of this researcher, this legislation is rather limited in its requirements when compared to other countries. In addition, it does not apply to businesses in Switzerland.

2.1.1.2.2 European Union

Since 2016, the European Union has had a specific law, Directive 2016/2102, on the accessibility of websites and mobile applications (2016). Article 4 of the Directive is binding upon EU member states and requires them to ensure that public bodies take “necessary measures to make their websites and mobile applications more accessible by making them perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.” Under Article 5, the Directive states that

9 While this has been described as an “implementation order,” it does not imply priority with respect to the needs of users with various disabilities (Reid and Snow-Weaver 2008).

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European standard EN 301 549 V1.1.2¹⁰ is to be used when judging website compliance. In what refers to web accessibility, this standard is based on WCAG 2.0. In addition, Article 7 requires that “public sector bodies provide and regularly update a detailed, comprehensive and clear accessibility statement on the compliance of their websites and mobile applications with this Directive” (ibid.). The Directive is limited in scope because, as in the case of the Swiss law, it does not require any action on the accessibility of private sector or business websites.

Although still to be implemented, the European Accessibility Act¹¹ aims to further harmonise member states’ national laws on accessibility issues, including web accessibility.

Interestingly enough, the text of the final legislative proposal states in particular (in Article 3.6) that “air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport services, the websites, the mobile device- based services, smart ticketing and real-time information and self-service terminals, ticketing machines and check-in machines used for provision of passenger transport services shall comply with the corresponding requirements” (ibid.). The “corresponding requirements” stated in Annex I, Section V are as follows: “making websites accessible in a consistent and adequate way for users’ perception, operation and understanding, including the adaptability of content presentation and interaction, when necessary providing an accessible electronic alternative; and in a way which facilitates interoperability with a variety of user agents and assistive technologies available at Union and international level” (ibid.). Taking the latter into account, one could argue that a WCAG-compliant website would meet this specification, although the draft does not refer to WCAG explicitly. At the time of writing, the European Accessibility Act had been approved by the European Parliament.¹² Its requirements are not, however, expected to become effective for two or three years, as they need to be converted into national law in the EU member states.

2.1.1.2.3 United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the main goal of the Equality Act 2010 and its earlier version, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 (DDA), is to provide disabled people with new rights in the areas of employment, communications, and access to goods and services (Connor 2012).

10 The full text of the standard can be found at

https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/301500_301599/301549/01.01.02_60/en_301549v010102p.pdf (accessed 3 May 2019).

11The full text of the Act can be found at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-

content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52015PC0615&from=EN (accessed 13 May 2019).

12 The legislation was approved on 13 March 2019. A report can be found at:

https://www.eud.eu/news/european-accessibility-act-final-steps-european-level-first-steps-national-level/

(accessed 13 May 2019).

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Part III of the DDA applied particularly to websites and has since been reformulated in Chapter 2 of the Equality Act (ibid.). These legal requirements are expansive and comparatively demanding for web accessibility. In particular, the DDA states that it is “unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public” (Disability Rights Commission 2002, 9). Further indicating that service providers have to “take reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services” (2002, 47). DDA considers that a company, an airline company for example, would have to obey these rules if it offered a flight booking and reservation service to the public (2002, 16). Since a website is a service offered to the public, a company cannot discriminate by refusing to make that service accessible. A company must “take reasonable steps” to allow a person with disabilities to use its website (2002, 20). Article 20 of the Equality Act confirms this, stating that service providers and businesses must make “reasonable adjustments” to their practices. This would include making a website accessible. The following example is given by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission:

A provider of legal services establishes a website to enable the public to access its services more easily. However, the website has all of its text embedded within graphics.

Although it did not intend to discriminate indirectly against those with a visual impairment, this practice by the provider places those with a visual impairment at a particular disadvantage because they cannot change the font size or apply text-to-speech recognition software. They therefore cannot access the website. As well as giving rise to an obligation to make a reasonable adjustment to their website, their practice will be indirect disability discrimination... (Great Britain and Equality and Human Rights Commission 2011)

The UK legislation differs from the Swiss and EU Directive approaches in that it applies to businesses and not just government authorities. WCAG conformance itself is not required by the Equality Act, but a business would be required to show that its website is accessible, and WCAG-oriented adjustments would be one way of doing this.

2.1.1.2.4 United States

The Rehabilitation Act 1973 adopted by the United States is the main legislative act aimed at ensuring equal rights for people with disabilities (Connor 2012). Sections 504 and

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508 concern web accessibility. Section 504 “requires agencies to provide individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in their programs and benefit from their services, including the provision of information to employees and members of the public” (Digital Communications Division 2010). By “agencies,” the Act means federal government agencies and not businesses (ibid.). Section 508 requires Federal agencies “to ensure that persons with disabilities (both employees and members of the public) have comparable access to and use of electronic information technology. That means that any electronic and information technology used, maintained, developed, or procured . . . must be accessible to persons with disabilities”

(ibid.). Another related law, the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 (ADA), aims to provide equal opportunity for people with disabilities to participate in programs, services, and activities (Connor 2012). Two main sections of the ADA can be applied to web accessibility. Title II states that communication with people with disabilities must be “as effective as communications with others” [28 C.F.R. ss 35.160 (a)] when public services are being provided; and Title III provides specific rules on the “public accommodation”¹³ of people with disabilities by “private entities” or businesses (15).

Finally, it is worth mentioning the Air Carrier Access Act 1986 (ACAA),¹⁴ which is particularly relevant in the context of this thesis. It was recently amended in 2013 to strengthen accessibility requirements. The ACAA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in air travel and applies to “all flights of U.S. airlines and to flights to or from the United States by foreign airlines.” It would therefore cover services provided for a flight by Swiss International Air Lines from Geneva to New York, for example. Article 382.43 of the ACAA specifies in very clear terms that an airline’s “primary Web site must conform to all Success Criteria and all Conformance Requirements from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation 11 December 2008, Web site Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 for Level AA.”¹⁵ This requirement became effective for all pages on an airline website in December 2016. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which administers the legislation, is authorised to issue fines of up to US $32,140 per violation for airlines whose websites do not

13 “Public Accommodations and Commercial Facilities (Title III),” ADA, United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, https://www.ada.gov/ada_title_III.htm (accessed 3 May 2019). Examples of public accommodations include schools, theatres, and restaurants, among others.

14More information about the act can be found at https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/passengers- disabilities (accessed 31 March 2019).

15“14 CFR Section 382.43 - Must Information and Reservations Services of Carriers Be Accessible to Individuals With Visual, Hearing, and Other Disabilities?” Legal Information Institute,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/382.43 (accessed 31 March 2019).

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meet these standards.¹⁶ The Department of Transportation has fined airlines in the past for other accessibility violations, such as the failure of Virgin America to make its “in-flight safety video accessible to passengers with hearing impairments.”¹⁷ In that case, Virgin America was fined

$150,000. In another case, in 2017, the Department of Transportation agreed not to fine All Nippon Airways, a Japanese airline, in return for a definite promise to make its mobile site accessible by a specific deadline.¹⁸

2.1.1.2.5 Legislative environment in summary

This section has provided a brief summary of the main legislation in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States relating to web accessibility. While it is often assumed that legislative requirements apply mainly to government authorities, this view should be reconsidered in light of recent developments. Legislation in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States is increasingly aimed at private sector businesses.

Furthermore, impending legislation in the European Union will soon apply specifically to transport companies and their websites.

W3C standards are a useful common starting point for compliance, because most of these laws recognise WCAG or WCAG outcomes. Based on the laws examined above, it can be assumed that a Swiss-based airline, while not having specific Swiss legislation to comply with (existing Swiss legislation applies only to public authorities), is very likely to face accessibility requirements in other places. For example, if a Swiss-based airline flies to the United Kingdom, it would need to comply with the Equality Act 2010. If it flies to the United States, it would need to comply with the ACAA and the very specific web accessibility requirements for WCAG Level AA. When the European Accessibility Act becomes effective, the airline would need to comply with the annexes applicable to transport companies to be able to serve the European Union countries.

16 The full document on the Civil Penalty Amount can be found at

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/27/2018-24930/revisions-to-civil-penalty-amounts (accessed 13 May 2019).

17“DOT Fines Virgin America for Failing to Make In-Flight Safety Videos Accessible to Passengers With Hearing Impairments,” U. S. Department of Transportation, 10 September 2013.

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot-fines-virgin-america-failing-make-flight-safety-videos- accessible-passengers (accessed 13 May 2019).

18 “Agreement by and between All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd. and U.S. Department of Transportation, Docket DOT-OST-2017-0167, 25 October 2017,” U. S. Department of Transportation.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/resources/individuals/aviation-consumer- protection/287901/agreement-website-accessibility-ana-and-dot_4.pdf (accessed 13 May 2019).

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2.1.2 Evaluation

Accessibility evaluation is a broad field, with a number of schools and different methods represented in the literature. Brajnik (2008, 65) for instance views accessibility evaluation as a process of identifying “problems whose solution makes a difference in accessibility as viewed by stakeholders,” further suggesting that focusing on these problems first will help evaluators to optimise their resources. As Abou-Zahra (2008, 79) emphasises, web accessibility is a “qualitative and experimental measure” and considers that the evaluation process should “include different techniques and maintain flexibility and adaptability toward different situations.” Evaluation may also have different objectives, which may affect the type and method of evaluation employed. For example, a legal or regulatory check made by a government enforcement authority may assess a site against defined standards on paper, whereas a quality control assessment may perform user evaluations or a “barrier walkthrough”

to understand the actual experience of individuals.

This section offers an overview of the main techniques and strategies used to evaluate web accessibility. Abou-Zahra (2008, 79) defines web accessibility evaluation as “an assessment of how well the Web can be used by people with disabilities.” Others may simply speak of conformance or success against the WCAG criteria, as earlier discussed (see Section 2.1.1.1). Evaluation may also vary in scope and include individual web pages, collections of web pages, or whole websites.

Abou-Zahra identifies three basic types of evaluation, which include “user testing”

(carried out by end users), “automated testing” (using specialised software), and “manual testing” (carried out by human evaluators with knowledge about accessibility). The following sections will examine each technique in greater detail and briefly summarise some advantages and disadvantages of each.

2.1.2.1 User testing

As the name of the technique indicates, user testing is carried out by human end users, rather than by trained evaluators or specific software tools (Abou-Zahra 2008, 86). While focusing on the end users, the main objective of this evaluation method is to find out how well technical solutions match the needs of users in a specific context. There are various methods of user testing, with the more general ones including informal and formal checks (2008, 87).

Informal checks are very simple, consisting of asking the opinions of regular users, such as

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relatives or friends. Informal checks, while useful and easy to implement, tend to be influenced by personal opinion or preferences (ibid.). Formal checks, on the other hand, are carried out by professional experts following specific usability procedures. This method is considered highly reliable, though when applied in the context of web accessibility, it requires evaluators to identify sufficiently diverse user base and appropriate user tasks (2008, 87).

User testing evaluation is an optional but recommended method by the W3C Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (Velleman and Abou-Zahra 2014).

Although user testing is one of the popular evaluation methods, it is not usually used alone.

The reasons may include the difficulty of testing a large number of web pages when users are involved, difficulties associated with finding users in a particular group, and the lack of expertise on the user’s end (ibid.).

Although insights obtained from user testing drawn from related work and cited in various sections below are informative, a further discussion of this technique is beyond the scope of this thesis, because this work does not employ user testing.

2.1.2.2 Automated testing

Automated testing method is an evaluation technique that uses web accessibility evaluation tools such as software programs or online services to assess if web content meets accessibility guidelines.¹⁹ Various tools are available on the market, and the final choice of the tool to use depends on the objective of the evaluation as well as the target group of users for the content in question. Types of tools (Eggert and Abou-Zahra 2016) may vary depending on (i) what specific guidelines they are able to test (WCAG 2.0, 2.1, Section 508 etc.), (ii) the language of the tool, (iii) the technology necessary for the use of the tool (online tool, mobile application, browser plugin, etc.), and (iv) the scope of content the tool is able to test (single web page, group of web pages, or websites).

A widely used tool cited in previous studies, although no longer available, is Bobby, an automated web accessibility evaluation tool available from 1995 to 2005, whose interface is shown in Figure 2.1:

19The full list of Web Accessibility Evaluation tools and their types published by W3C can be found at https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ (accessed 31 March 2019).

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Figure 2.1. The interface of Bobby, a now-defunct automated accessibility evaluation tool.

Figure 2.2 shows the interface of AChecker, another automated tool frequently employed in studies of web accessibility (Olalere and Lazar 2011; Ismail and Kuppusamy 2018):

Figure 2.2. The interface of AChecker, an automated accessibility evaluation tool.

Generally speaking, automated testing tools share similar functionalities, specifically (i) fields in which to insert the address of the website and (ii) selection of standards or criteria

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against which to test the web page. Instead of involving actual users, with automated testing an evaluator applies a software tool to check the adherence of a given web page to a predefined set of guidelines (Brajnik, Yesilada, and Harper 2011). The main advantages of automated testing are obviously speed, the ability to evaluate a significant volume of web content, the limited need for human intervention, and the low cost (Abou-Zahra 2008, 85). Abou-Zahra (2008) identifies several types of automated testing:

• syntactic checks, which aim to analyse the syntactic structure of the web content, such as, for example, the existence of alt attributes or lang attributes;

• heuristic checks, which examine semantics in web content, such as the layout and markup information; and

• indicative checks, which estimate performance of whole websites or large collections of web pages using statistical metrics.

Automated testing does have specific disadvantages. Several authors have pointed out its limitations, as will be discussed later. The main conclusion from these prior studies is that evaluators should not rely exclusively on automated tools to evaluate website accessibility.

According to Jaeger (2008), for example, major limitations supporting this conclusion include:

• the common misidentification of elements as accessible or inaccessible;

• the failure to take into account different disabilities or variations of abilities among people with similar disabilities;

• the failure to address issues of usability or functionality;

• the failure to address compatibility with specific assistive technologies;

• typically high error rates, with some tools averaging an error rate of up to 30%; and

• an emphasis on automated tools by the software or design community, which tends to create a false impression that a good rating from a tool equates an accessible site.

In addition, Rodríguez Vázquez (2016) points out the following difficulties associated with the use of automated tools:

• automated evaluation software disregards more than half of the provisions of various accessibility standards, especially those related to language; and

• there are usability issues, such as long and complicated reports, absence of example solutions, and very limited error explanations.

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Abou-Zahra (2008, 85) notes that because such automated techniques can address only a limited number of WCAG criteria and cannot deal properly with natural language, they should be used only to obtain a general idea about the accessibility level of a website. Given the lack of solid legislation on web accessibility affecting businesses, one could argue that private sector corporations with multilingual websites are particularly likely to do just that: use automated testing, given the advantages mentioned above, to simply obtain a quick and easy report on web accessibility levels—but without going further to confirm actual levels of accessibility. But, again, this evaluation method, if used alone, should not be considered as a viable solution to the problem of evaluating web accessibility and should be coupled with other evaluation techniques (Brajnik 2008).

2.1.2.3 Manual testing

Manual testing is an analytical method involving human evaluators and is based on assessing whether a page (or set of pages) satisfies a checklist of criteria for web accessibility (Brajnik 2008).

Manual testing has a central role in the web accessibility evaluation process (Abou- Zahra 2008). As Abou-Zahra specifies, even though the evaluation process can be supported by software tools, human intervention is indispensable, for example, in judging the adequacy of alt attributes in images. There are several types of manual testing with varying requirements concerning the skills and knowledge of the human evaluator (ibid.). They include:

• nontechnical checks, which can be carried out by nontechnical evaluators (for example, content authors) to determine the validity of alt attributes;

• technical checks, which are often carried out by web developers with knowledge about web accessibility. Such developers will review markup code and document structure; and

• expert checks, which are carried out by evaluators with knowledge of how people with disabilities interact with the web.

Another type of manual testing, becoming increasingly popular, is inspection methods that include all three types of checks (nontechnical, technical, and expert) (Brajnik 2008). Two of these three-in-one inspection methods are the barrier walkthrough method and the conformance review method (ibid.). In the barrier walkthrough method an evaluator has to

Evaluating the Accessibility of Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland

Master

Reference

Evaluating the Accessibility of Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland

Volha Pontus

Evaluating the Accessibility of

Localised Websites: The Case of the Airline Industry in Switzerland

Déclaration attestant le caractère original du travail effectué

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

1 Introduction

1.1 Overview

1.2 Research context

1.2.1 Web accessibility

1.2.2 Disability and impairment

1.2.3 Accessibility and languages

1.3 Motivation and intended contribution

1.4 Research questions

1.5 Methodology

1.6 Thesis structure

2 Fundamentals and Related Work

2.1 Fundamentals

2.1.1 Web accessibility standards

2.1.2 Evaluation