Summary

The main findings of the project are that:

Most websites in the job opportunities sector are not following professional standards of web development
Professional standards of web development need to be augmented with user testing to ensure proper accessibility

Of particular note is that there is a common belief amongst web developers that:

There should not be any additional cost in making websites accessible, as the expertise to create a site professionally should be in place from the start
Accessibility will follow from applying professional standards

This was the view found in the majority of web developers interviewed for this research. However, this research has shown these beliefs in the web development community to be quite possibly erroneous. On the contrary, it seems that:

Additional costs may be incurred due to the need for disabled user testers to be involved in ironing out ‘bugs’ not foreseeable through the use of professional standards
Accessibility does not always follow from applying professional standards, but requires user testing.

A closely related outcome to the above findings, therefore, is that:

Professional standards – i.e. the use of valid W3C code and adherence to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – is not enough to ensure accessibility
Different versions of XHTML and CSS, the range of different browsers with differing implementations of same, and the range of different assistive technologies with differing support and responses to same, altogether, present too many variables and potential for unusual outcomes, for a simple professional approach to coding to be sufficient. User testing will likely find problems needing attention.