La accessibilidad de las webs de las universidades españolas. Balance 2001-2006

Abstract

This study examines the compliance of the web sites of Spanish universities with level A of the Web Content Access Guidelines (WCAG) v. 1.0 in 2006, and compares the obtained results with those of 2001. On the positive side, in 2006 more use of alternatives to graphics was made, cascading style sheets and the use of Flash and PDF. In addition, more universities (10 in total) complied 100 % with the WCAG at level A. On the negative side, the texts were of poorer quality than in 2001, and fewer complied with accessibility standards with respect to plans of study, which were usually automatically generated. An analysis was also made of the compliance of indicators with American standard 508 (which is not mandatory in Spain) and fi ve other usability indicators. No university complied 100 % with standard 508; compliance with the other indicators was 65 %. The results show that the level of accessibility remains low, similar in fact to the situation in 2001, but with large differences between universities. Indeed, the level of compliance is less than that which might be expected given the changes in Spanish law made to favour access to public web sites.