And don’t get me started on suppliers. The main problem is that web teams aren’t consulted before deals are entered into and contracts are signed. As a local authority web person, I’ve found myself on more than one occasion being forced to implement systems that I know are inaccessible, but I’ve got no way of blocking their release.

In Germany people often use the BITV-Test based on our legislation of WCAG. It is a well-documented site with much discussion of how to apply the tests. For a quick check, only three pages of different types are chosen, like the home page, a content page, and a contact form.

Each criterion is assigned with a severity: major, normal, or minor. Starting with a total of 100 points, for each failed criterion either 3, 2, or 1 points are subtracted, half of the points when a criterion is partially fulfilled. A website is highly accessible when the total is 95 or above, well accessible at 90-94 points, and badly accessible below 90. Also a few checkpoints can change the result into “inaccessible”, no matter what the actual score was. Think of navigational images without alt-text.

So what we got here is a score that can be benchmarked with other websites, a more precise result how accessible a website is. I think that’s a better approach.