Current situation as to the accessibility of local government Web sites
Analysis of problems by expert evaluation based on JIS X 8341-3
2018 Volume 36 Issue 1 Pages 37-45
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2018 Volume 36 Issue 1 Pages 37-45
Older people and people with disabilities are becoming more dependent on Web sites, so service access via the Web is now seen as a basic necessity. The accessibility of local government sites is particularly important, as they provide information important for everyday life. For this paper, we randomly selected 30 local governments, and checked whether they had published a Web accessibility policy. We also conducted expert evaluations of the accessibility of their Web sites by following the Japanese Industrial Standards, JIS X 8341-3 in 2013 and 2017. In 2017, only 23.3% of the local governments published their Web accessibility policy. Although the ratio with which the criteria of the standard were satisfied increased from 2013 to 2017, it was also found that, as of 2017, no site satisfied all of the success criteria. We used the results to analyze the frequent problems with accessibility, and elucidated the barriers to accessible Web sites.
