Accessibility observations of visually impaired users using the South African National Accessibility Portal

Abstract

Improving the accessibility of Internet web sites and portals is becoming more important as initiatives (such as the South African National Accessibility Portal), which address the marginalisation of persons with disabilities, gather momentum. Improving web site accessibility has proven to be a challenging task with a myriad of standards, accessibility testing tools and few technical guides for implementation. This paper presents the South African National Accessibility Portal (NAP), which is used as a research and test bed for accessibility implementations. It provides an overview of web standards applicable to accessibility, including the WCAG 1.0, the currently accepted web accessibility standard, as well as techniques used in the development of the portal to improve its accessibility. The paper presents some observations with regard to the success of these attempts as gathered from usability evaluations. The combination of technical implementation details and the resultant observations can aid other developers to fast track and improve accessibility for their development.