Disability and access to courts: Assessing the accessibility of U.S. federal judiciary homepages thirty years after the ADA

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mamadi Corra ◽  
Ian McCandliss
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Home Pages ◽  
Server Side ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Specialty Courts ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Records Access ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Text Images

Using basic accessibility standards, the presence or absence of essential usability features, and site accessibility statements, this study evaluates the accessibility of the home pages of the federal judiciary — those of the U.S. district, Appellate and specialty courts, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts (AO), the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), and the main homepage of PACER, the federal judiciary’s e-filing and e-records access system. Software evaluations reveal detected instances of a narrow set of accessibility issues, including scripts with no accompanying functional text, images/server-side image maps with no text equivalents/descriptors, and inaccessible forms. Manual evaluations of Web sites show a high proportion (about 67 percent) of the home pages provided skip navigation links, whereas smaller proportions provided direct or indirect links to accessibility information — about 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively, as well as controls for manipulating font size (about 12 percent). Notably, a sizeable proportion (about 45 percent) of home pages provided direct or indirect links to a “BrowseAloud” explanation and download page, apparently in lieu of information on accessibility. Finally, content analysis of existing Web site accessibility pages and policy statements show a high degree of variation, with some being exceptionally detailed and informative, and some less so.

Eliminating Invisible Barriers: Health Web Site Accessibility

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Christine Rzepka
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Simple Evaluation ◽  
The Web

One of the top reasons given for use of the internet is the ability to search for health information. However, much of the planning for web-based health information often fails to consider accessibility issues. If health care organizations and community agencies’ web sites have the latest, most wellresearched information on the health topics of the day, it is useless to those who cannot access it because of invisible technological barriers. Many flashy, high-tech sites were designed only to appeal to the needs of the mainstream population, with no consideration given to how people with disabilities must adapt their use of the web in order to access information. This article addresses issues of access specific to web site development, and will explore barriers to accessibility frequently experienced by web users with disabilities, requirements for ADA compliance, and how people with disabilities use the web. Web site accessibility guidelines, as well as simple evaluation tools, will be discussed. A thorough review of the article will enable even the least tech-savvy of health educators to enhance their skills in planning and evaluating web sites to promote access for people with disabilities.

Web Accessibility and the Law

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Yu
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Web Accessibility ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Section 508 ◽  
Rehabilitation Act ◽  
Accessibility Issues

Through a series of federal and state laws and standards, the legal foundation concerning Web accessibility that impact people with disabilities and their ability to fully overcome digital barriers and participate in the Web environment has been established. Currently, the concept of accessible design or universal design is increasingly becoming an important component of Web design. However, the unanswered questions in laws, the absence of the obligation in fulfilling legal requirements, and the general unawareness of the need to make Web pages accessible have created barriers in implementing the Americans with disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as amended in 1998, and others. In many cases, the absence of obligations is due to unfamiliarity with legal responsibility of creating accessible Web sites. As a result, the response to Web accessibility concerns frequently comes about only on an ad hoc basis. Identifying these barriers is the first step toward solutions. There are legal and practical approaches for addressing Web accessibility issues in policies, education, research and development, and technology and tools.

Web 2.0 and Beyond-Participation Culture on the Web

2009 ◽  
pp. 1537-1544
Author(s):  
August-Wilhelm Scheer
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Broad Band ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Server Side ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
The Web

The emergence of what we call today the World Wide Web, the WWW, or simply the Web, dates back to 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system to manage information overload at CERN, Switzerland (Berners-Lee, 1989). This article outlines how his approaches evolved into the Web that drives today’s information society and explores its full potentials still ahead. The formerly known wide-area hypertext information retrieval initiative quickly gained momentum due to the fast adoption of graphical browser programs and standardization activities of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In the beginning, based only on the standards of HTML, HTTP, and URL, the sites provided by the Web were static, meaning the information stayed unchanged until the original publisher decided for an update. For a long time, the WWW, today referred to as Web 1.0, was understood as a technical mean to publish information to a vast audience across time and space. Data was kept locally and Web sites were only occasionally updated by uploading files from the client to the Web server. Application software was limited to local desktops and operated only on local data. With the advent of dynamic concepts on server-side (script languages like hypertext preprocessor (PHP) or Perl and Web applications with JSP or ASP) and client-side (e.g., JavaScript), the WWW became more dynamic. Server-side content management systems (CMS) allowed editing Web sites via the browser during run-time. These systems interact with multiple users through PHP-interfaces that push information into server-side databases (e.g., mySQL) which again feed Web sites with content. Thus, the Web became accessible and editable not only for programmers and “techies” but also for the common user. Yet, technological limitations such as slow Internet connections, consumer-unfriendly Internet rates, and poor multimedia support still inhibited a mass-usage of the Web. It needed broad-band Internet access, flat rates, and digitalized media processing to catch on.

The Ethics of Web Design

2008 ◽  
pp. 3410-3429
Author(s):  
Jack S. Cook ◽  
Laura Cook
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Web Accessibility ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Issue ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Web Designers ◽  
Complete Access

Web accessibility is really not a technological issue but rather a cultural problem. A Web site is said to be Web accessible if anyone, regardless of capabilities or disabilities, using any kind of Web browsing technology to visit the site has full and complete access to the site’s content and has the ability to interact with the site if required. If properly planned from the start, a Web site can be functional, accessible and aesthetically pleasing. This chapter focuses on ensuring access to information available on the Internet. The overall objective is to increase awareness of Web accessibility issues by providing rationale for why Web designers should be interested in creating accessible sites. Specifically, this chapter identifies some of the emerging digital barriers to accessibility encountered by those with disabilities. Current efforts to address these barriers legally are identified and their effectiveness for breaking down barriers is discussed. The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C’s) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is discussed, followed by a study of the 50 most visited Web sites. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of this topic and future developments.

The Effectiveness of Privacy Policy Statements

2011 ◽  
pp. 84-111
Author(s):  
Roger Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Consumer Trust ◽  
Privacy Policy ◽  
Internet Commerce ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Security Practices ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Business To Consumer

An expectation exists in the U.S.A. that operators of business-to-consumer (B2C) Web sites will provide public notice of their privacy and security practices in relation to the personal data that they hold. Such documents are referred to in this paper as Privacy Policy Statements (PPS). The use of PPS has become mainstream in many other countries as well. Privacy and security of personal data are important elements in consumer trust, and hence in a consumer‘s decision to make purchases using Internet commerce services. PPS could therefore be expected to play an important role in overcoming the impediments to consumer purchases online. This paper adds to the growing research literature on PPS by developing a research design involving comparison of an organisation’s PPS against a normative template developed on the basis of professional practice and laws, policies, practices, and public expectations around the world. A study of six B2C sites was undertaken, in order to assess the practicability of the design, and provide some initial substantive insight into the contributions that PPS currently make to consumer trust. It appears that many organisations’ PPS may be seriously inadequate, and hence may be more of an impediment to trust than an enabler of Web-commerce adoption.

Web Accessibility

2011 ◽  
pp. 1205-1210
Author(s):  
Gennaro Costagliola ◽  
Sergio Di Martino ◽  
Filomena Ferrucci ◽  
Carmine Gravino
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Blind Users ◽  
Wheelchair Users ◽  
Internet Technologies ◽  
Use Of Services ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
The Web

Accessibility means making resources usable by the largest number of people possible, or alternatively, allowing people with some kind of disability to effectively participate in day-to-day activities, including the use of services, goods, and information. The evolution of civil rights enhanced the physical world with several accessibility aids, such as ramps to remove architectural barriers for wheelchair users or bells near elevators for blind users. To address the size of the “disable world”, let us consider that only in the European Union there are about 37 million people with disabilities. Disabled people find in the Internet a major reference for their daily necessities to overcome their difficulties in moving and communicating. As institutional, economical, and social services provided through the Web become increasingly central to our lives, to avoid the risk for severe social exclusion, there is the need for “accessibility aids” for the Web. Informally, it means that Web-based content should be presented in a way that allows disabled users to maximally and equally benefit from the information, as well as have the faculty to fully interact with the site. People with physical, cognitive or even technological disabilities should be enabled to effectively read information, browse sites, compile forms, navigate links, download documents, and so on. This goal can be achieved by using a mix of hardware/software solutions, suited to provide specialized input and output capabilities. For example, text-to-speech systems read text on the screen, allowing blind users to navigate Web sites. However, to work effectively, such solutions require Web designers to use Internet technologies accordingly to some recommendations. Incidentally, the recommendations and principles that form the accessibility foundation are very similar to the factors affecting Web quality (Fitzpatrick, 2000; Top of the Web, 2003), and thus can provide benefits to every user of the Internet, whether disabled or not. As a result, accessibility should represent one of the most important references for Web developers. In this article, we provide an insight into the development of accessible Web sites. In particular, we will start by outlining the historical background about the accessibility issues. Then, we will focus on the design of Accessible Web sites inspired to the universal design principles (Follette, Mueller, & Mace, 1998) and World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) directives, and on the solutions to verify and validate accessibility. Finally, we will give an insight on future trends and challenges due to novel Internet technologies.

scholarly journals Library Home Page Design: A Comparison of Page Layout for Front Ends to ARL Library Web Sites

1998 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 457-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. King
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Home Page ◽  
Home Pages ◽  
Domain Name ◽  
Page Layout ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Association Of Research Libraries ◽  
Parent Institution ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Page Design

The author examined the home pages of all 120 libraries in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in order to compare design similarities and differences. This was accomplished by first filling out a questionnaire on each home page and then tabulating the findings using simple averages and medians. Areas examined were: backgrounds, document headers, document footers, document body, page length, number of steps to library home page from parent institution Web site, and domain name servers. A typical home page is discussed using the averages of these results.

Information Security by Words Alone

2011 ◽  
pp. 154-159
Author(s):  
Kirk P. Arnett ◽  
Gary F. Templeton ◽  
David A. Vance
Keyword(s):  
Information Security ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Control Information ◽  
Fortune 100 ◽  
Formal Policy ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Density Measure ◽  
And Control

Effective information security extends beyond using software controls that are so prominently discussed in the popular and academic literature. There must also be management influence and control. The best way to control information security is through formal policy and measuring the effectiveness of existing policies. The purpose of this research is to determine 1) what security elements are embedded in Web-based information security policy statements and 2) what security-related keywords appear more frequently. The authors use these findings to propose a density measure (the extent to which each policy uses security keywords) as an indicator of policy strength. For these purposes, they examine the security component of privacy policies of Fortune 100 Web sites. The density measure may serve as a benchmark that can be used as a basis for comparison across companies and the development of industry norms.

Accessibility Issues of Educational Web Sites

2012 ◽  
pp. 277-286
Author(s):  
Serhat Kurt
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Web Accessibility ◽  
Current Status ◽  
The World ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Practical Recommendations ◽  
The Web

The World Wide Web (Web) has become an essential part of our daily life. Web accessibility remains an important issue because many people have limited access to the Web. It is essential to make this content accessible to all people. This chapter provides an overview of the importance of web accessibility. It explains the current status of the issue, accessibility guidelines and techniques to evaluate and achieve web accessibility. Useful resources and practical recommendations to increase accessibility are also included.

Eliminating Invisible Barriers

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Christine Hagion Rzepka
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Simple Evaluation ◽  
The Web

One of the top reasons given for use of the internet is the ability to search for health information. However, much of the planning for web-based health information often fails to consider accessibility issues. If health care organizations and community agencies’ web sites have the latest, most wellresearched information on the health topics of the day, it is useless to those who cannot access it because of invisible technological barriers. Many flashy, high-tech sites were designed only to appeal to the needs of the mainstream population, with no consideration given to how people with disabilities must adapt their use of the web in order to access information. This article addresses issues of access specific to web site development, and will explore barriers to accessibility frequently experienced by web users with disabilities, requirements for ADA compliance, and how people with disabilities use the web. Web site accessibility guidelines, as well as simple evaluation tools, will be discussed. A thorough review of the article will enable even the least tech-savvy of health educators to enhance their skills in planning and evaluating web sites to promote access for people with disabilities.

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