Audit of Employment Websites
Many studies of the accessibility of various categories of website have been undertaken, (e.g. Zaphiris at el 2001; Ritchie et al 2003; Guo et al 2005). Research undertaken by City University for the Disability Rights Commission and published in April 2004, (DRC 2004), which examined over 1000 UK websites across all sectors, and the study of some 300 or more European Government websites published at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference in November 2005, (eGovernment Unit 2005; Thompson 2003) all used a broadly similar combination of strict pass/fail audit against the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C 1999) and the results of a disabled user testing exercise, to assess the accessibility of websites. The combination of IT audit and user testing is needed because a simple automated software check against the guidelines, as commented elsewhere (Kreps et al 2006a and 2006b) is insufficient to address all the issues.
The aim of the majority of the research thus far undertaken in this field, therefore, has been to ascertain either a completely generalised assessment of the accessibility of websites on the World Wide Web in a particular country (DRC 2004; Guo et al 2005) or in a particular sector (eGovernment Unit 2005; Thompson 2003). These studies, whilst worthy and of technical interest, are perhaps somewhat lacking in focus, however. The issue of the accessibility of websites to people with impairments is fundamentally about those people being able to partake fully in the information society, and not be confronted by disabling barriers. There is no more disabling barrier than the economic, and access to the labour market is of fundamental importance. This is, albeit at a higher economic level, not totally dissimilar to the obvious need for clean water and efficient food production in poverty-stricken third world countries, prior to the provision – however worthy and important – of cheap clockwork laptops. Yes, it would be good if the whole of the World Wide Web presented no disabling barriers to impaired surfers, but when between 81% (DRC) and 97% (eGovernment Unit 2005) of the web is inaccessible, websites advertising employment vacancies are of particular importance as regards research focus. Yet in an information society where even the local Job Centre has touch-screen computers listing all the current vacancies (as is the case in the UK), what does this say about electronic access to employment opportunities? Government may embrace a rhetoric of equality of opportunity under the banner of an homogenised concept, but the reality is that any person unable to access a touch screen cannot gain equal access. In this example, the effect of impairment means a severely visually impaired person cannot read a screen; the affect of the choice of technology means the impaired person is also disabled, by non inclusive design. Alternative tactile overlays for touch screens connected to speech synthesis are already on the market, but it would seem such equipment is not available to UK job seekers.
eDiscrimination is a complex area, but the following examples may assist with understanding the problem: Those using screen readers or voice browsers to listen to websites require alternative text with images, labels on form fields, and headings on data tables. Without these imagery is completely inaccessible, forms prohibitively confusing, and data tables meaningless. Those unable to use a mouse to navigate around a webpage require careful coding of the page to ensure ‘device independence’ is a feature of any interaction. Mouse-only interaction discriminates against such users.
For this research project, a list of employment related websites was drawn up covering both regional and national job adverts, and both public and private sector job opportunities. Of the 112 websites in this list 27 were local to Greater Manchester, 22 from the wider NorthWest region, 53 were national employment services covering all regions, and 10 employment agencies.
21 of the websites were public sector, the rest private sector. A number specialised in niche markets: 2 were purely in education, 6 advertising general administrative jobs, 1 solely the automotive industry, 1 solely banking and finance, 1 construction, 1 consulting, 1 cultural sector, 1 defence, 1 civilian defence, 4 specifically aimed at disabled job seekers, 1 in engineering, 1 in the entertainment industry, 3 in finance and accounting, 4 in the health sector, 2 in hospitality, 3 in IT, 2 in the police, 2 in retail, 2 in sales, 1 secretarial, 1 for student jobs, 2 for technical posts, 1 for temping and seasonal jobs. The rest were general job search websites, with a wide range of employment opportunities. The full list is included in the Appendix.
These 112 websites were subjected to a rigorous audit against each of the 65 checkpoints of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. 15 of the websites passed all Level A checkpoints. None passed all Level AA checkpoints. The following diagrams show how websites performed regionally and nationally, at Level A.
Clearly, the compliance with WCAG 1.0 of the vast majority of employment related websites in 2007 is as poor as that found among EU public sector websites in 2005 (eGovenment Unit 2005) and in 1000 general UK websites in 2004 (DRC 2004).