A comparative study of web content accessibility of public and private organizations in Australia

Increasingly, organizations employ the World Wide Web (Web) to disseminate information and interact with the public. This vehicle for information exchange is changing the way people work and live. However, the extent to which the Web benefits society in general depends, for a good part, on the design of the web environment. Australia is the first country to have a law case and legislation related to web content accessibility. However, research studies on web content accessibility of web sites in Australia are limited. This study aims to investigate the current status of web content accessibility of web sites in Australia. Homepages of 385 private and public organizations in Australia were evaluated. Overall, less than 1% of the web sites are free of any accessibility barriers. While over 80% of the public organizations' web sites are accessible (i.e. passed all the automated tests for Priority 1 (P1) checkpoints defined in WCAG1.0), 80% of the private organizations' web sites are found to have substantial accessibility barriers. The constantlychanging web authorization technologies and the increasing reliance on multimedia to deliver information present ongoing challenges for maintaining web content accessibility. In view of new technologies and legislation, it is important that web content accessibility be monitored and reviewed on a regular basis. This study evaluates web content accessibility of web sites of both public and private organizations in Australia. Our findings have significant implications to both research and practice, and they are discussed in detail. © 2007 International Business Information Management Association.