Title
A longitudinal study of state government homepage accessibility in Maryland and the role of web page templates for improving accessibility
Abstract
It is well documented that government agencies, at all levels, continue to have problems ensuring that government web sites follow laws related to web accessibility for people with disabilities. Although there are a number of published studies on government web accessibility that are point-in-time, there are no published studies consisting of a longitudinal analysis of state-level government web site accessibility. This paper contributes to the research literature in three ways: 1) an accessibility inspection of 25 Maryland state government homepages in 2012 which involved 150 human inspections of web pages, 2) a comparison of the results from 2012 to a similar accessibility evaluation in 2009, and 3) a discussion of the role of a web page template, which was introduced in Maryland state government shortly after the 2009 evaluation. The data from this longitudinal evaluation leads to the conclusion that web page templates do tend to result in more accessible sites within state government.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1016/j.giq.2013.03.003
Government Information Quarterly
Keywords
Field
DocType
Web accessibility,Policy,Disability,Compliance,Section 508,Templates
Web Accessibility Initiative,Longitudinal study,Economics,World Wide Web,Web page,State government,Public relations,Web standards,Web accessibility,Web site,Government
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
30
3
0740-624X
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.60
12
Authors
22