This page contains material from a presentation at the WAI Best Practices Exchange
Training in Madrid, Spain in February 2004. It is not intended to
stand-alone; rather, it is primarily provided as reference material for
participants in the training.
AccessiWeb Evaluation Methodology
Sylvie Duchateau, Braillenet
Last updated: 12 October 2004
Basis
- The BrailleNet Evaluation Method is a method to evaluate the
accessibility of Web sites.
- It is based on:
- This method has been developed by the BrailleNet Association.
- It relies on the evaluation of public and private Web sites.
The evaluation team
- Team of three experts;
- with complementary competencies and three different profiles:
- Ergonomic : a person who can perform user tests on the usability of
the Web site
- Technical : a person who develops at least in HTML, CSS and
Javascript
- User: a person with a disability who knows several assistive
technologies (screen reader, text browser, trackball,
keyboard...)
The evaluation tools
- evaluation tools are used in the BrailleNet method to help Experts.
The BrailleNet Evaluation process- Step 1 / 4: Selection of 10, 20 or 30
pages
- Depending on the size and complexity of Web sites, a different number
of pages are evaluated (10, 20, 30 or more).
- Pages are chosen according to their level of importance (Home Page
for instance)
- or if they are a template used a template used many times on the
Web site.
- Some pages are systematically evaluated:
- Home page
- Search engine page and result page
- Site map page
- Help page
- Page with form
- Page with files to be downloaded
- Page with data table
- Page of level 1 in the Web site architecture
- Page of level 2 in the Web site architecture
The BrailleNet Evaluation process- Step 2 / 4: Preliminary review
- The 3 Experts quickly get the scope of problems on a Web site.
- By using tools like Opera or Internet Exporer:
- they check if images have alternative texts,
- if the Web site is still usable if scripts are disabled,
- if the Web site is readable by increasing the size of letters,
- or if all links are reachable in an appropriate way by using the
tab key.
- An evaluation tool is also run on the Web site to get an idea of its
compliance to the WCAG.
The BrailleNet Evaluation Method - Step 3 / 4: Checking the list of
criteria
1. divide between the 3 experts
- 3 lists of criteria on the basis of the 3 experts’ profiles.
- Some of them belong to more than 1 list and have to be double
checked.
2. A detailed process for checking
- A table filled in with all the criteria.
- For each of them a detailed description of how to check it has been
provided (which tool to use and how to use i).
- A column for writing comments if necessary.
- Each Expert evaluates the selected Web pages according to his list of
criteria.
3. Evaluation overlap to validate the results
- In addition to its list of criteria, each Expert evaluates the selected
Web pages testing riteria from the 2 other lists.
- If results are different, the evaluation manager organises a
face-to-face meeting between the Experts, or e-mails are exchanged.
The checklist
Topics
- images, frames, colours;
- multimedia, tables, links;
- scripts, structure, presentation, forms
- site navigation, miscellanious.
The BrailleNet Evaluation process- Step 4 / 4: The evaluation report
- writing the report which has the following parts:
- An introduction: which method, which tools
- Main good points and main accessibility problems
- Technical annex
- Ressources (links to ressources on Web Accessibility on the
Web)
- List of evaluated Web pages
Ressources
List of the AccessiWeb criteria
List to be downloaded on http://www.accessiweb.org
The evaluation report
A template in French is available.
References
- Evaluation of more than 300 Web sites (public and et private) since
1997: