Web-Products, Actual for Inclusive School Graduates: Evaluating the Accessibility

Abstract

Over the years, the understanding of a person with special needs evolved into the worldwide tendency of support of groups of people in need of social protection. The structure of social and educational inclusion became a complex system, with numerous members of different kinds and hierarchical organization. Modern society promotes a concept of “design for all” when products and environments are created and managed in such a way that they could be used by the widest range of people without the need for adaptation or special design. Such concept of universal design is also applicable to information and communication technologies. Developed web-accessibility manuals (WCAG 2.0 Guidelines, for example) and tools, discussed in this paper, were used to evaluate web-products, available for graduating schoolchildren in Ukraine. The formal conceptual model of the WCAG 2.0 Guideline was used to describe the current compliance state of appropriate web products. The websites characteristics, that do not meet WCAG 2.0 success criteria, should be emphasized and taken into account not only by IT professionals while developing ICTs, but also by teachers, lecturers, educators, and tutors, who are the subject of teaching disciplines, related to programming and information technologies.