Page created 16th March 2006. Last updated 12th March 2007
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Contact Heretic Press for an accessibility audit of your website. Audits will help you identify current accessibility problems and provide guidance for compliance with international W3C standards and accessibility laws.
In Australia, there is a partnership between a private company CeBIT and the Australian Government, through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO). The Australian Government Information Office (AGIMO) is presenting an award 10th May 2006. "Australia is a leader in e-Government" said the Hon Gary Nairn MP, who will present the award for the best Australian government website.
I emailed Gary Nairn asking him to consider validity and accessibility in the award criteria. Gary did reply by snail mail, but merely stated that he was very interested in IT issues! I could not believe that Australia was a leader in e-government. Anedotally, looking at positions advertised for websites wanting to promote accessibility, most positions seem to be based in the UK. I emailed AGIMO with a link to a list of errors, especially in the accessibility page.
I also noted improvements they could make in their accessibility page. I received a dismissive response on 15th March 2006:
They should be very busy then. Despite the self assured reply, they did not answer any questions about the errors in their own pages. Server logs show that AGIMO have studied this website over 23 visits:
I think the few arrogant words in reply in conjunction with 23 visits to these webpages, means you could be answering my questions by now, or paying me, or getting about your business without me.
mail01.agimo.gov.au 12 visits 2,697 Kb
mail02.agimo.gov.au 11 visits 3,715 Kb.
AGIMO have not acknowledged errors or ways to improve and they do not satisfactorily answer critics seeking improvements.
The Prime Minister's department to their credit answered my email and they said they were addressing HTML errors in John Howard's webpage, but they have done nothing in the last nine months. I hope the Prime Minister's department is not like others placing all their faith in Finance and AGIMO to properly give impartial "best" practice advice?
Could it be true? That AGIMO are the best leading by example? To me that attitude seems smug and boasting. I wanted to test the statement by the Australian Special Minister of State Gary Nairn, that Australia was a leader in e-government, by making comparisons with e-government websites in two other English speaking countries, the USA and the UK.
50 US sites Us sites have "Neither the mandate nor the motivation".
Andy King eGovernment Site Credibility
American Study
Australian University tests
University website
2001 Report
An incredible result, I find hard to believe. "All 611 sites tested acheived Bobby Approval"
"The exeptional site was the Australian Defence Force Academy".
Australian Study
John Allthorpp's study methodology subtracted points for missing features; validity, accessibility, CSS, the use of tables, poor fonts. John also tested Australian government websites, australia.gov.au, Centrelink and vic.gov.au. After a good start with his first page for one of the biggest companies in Australia, "The Big Australian" BHP Biliton, John reported that, "From then on it was almost literally downhill"
I concur with John, having done a similar number of reviews, it was a nightmare for me as well for any mind aspiring to efficiency and order. There were only a few accessible sites which were a pleasure review.
Whereas previous research had sampled more Australian sites, this study wanted to make international comparisons. Where did Australian government websites stand internationally on validity and accessibility?
Making HTML summaries and test results for each page allows easier repeat progess testing. The sample of pages could be expanded and maintained over time for a more objective e-government excellence award.
Web Page Accessibility: Research Studies
Web Accessibility Survey Site
David Hark's resource links
Subjects were three matched samples of government websites in Australia, the USA and the UK. The matched sample design was chosen to compare the websites of similar goverment departments in different countries. For example, a comparison of the websites of the Queen, the Prime Minister of Australia and President of the USA. Each country also has similar governmental departments, human services, finance, defence, education, information technology and social security. Though the names may differ and the Americans make us take the "u" out of color and spell defense with an "s", the function and delivery of online web information for each population, has many similar purposes.
To pick matched samples of universities, selections from the list of top universities in each country. Top universities
What does differ more than the message or specific government policies, is the measurable way that information is presented. Compliance with document standards on the internet is a variable that can be precisely measured. The measure of this variable involves online testing and accessibility feature evaluations.
An alternative sampling design would involve taking a large sample of websites from each country, at least 100 sites. In this case, stratified random sampling is hoped to be adequate as the departments chosen are ones of enormous financial and intellectual resources. If the government sets the standards, like the US Section 508 of the rehabilitation Act, they should lead by example in compliance.
If I had the resources in an organisation whose clients were shut out from e-government services, I would use real people from each country to test each site, which is utimately the object, to study the accessibility for real people, rather than the easier option taken here of using online testing validation tools.
W3C is the world wide Web Consortium, which specifies the format and content of webpages. Manufacturers of browser software such as Explorer or Netscape and many others, which people use to browse or "surf" the web, base their software on these W3C standards, which are part of a larger set of document standards called the Standard General Markup Language (SGML).
1. W3C Validation of the webpage HTML or XHTML
Validation passes a webpage as valid or fails the webpage and counts the number of page errors. A webpage which was so bad the validator could not check it (two instances of this) was allocated an arbitrary score of 100 errors.
2. W3C link checker
3. Cynthia online validator. Some other accessibility checkers such as webxact could also be used. Cynthia was chosen as it passes or fails web documents according to set criteria that would make the document more accessible to a blind or visually impaired person.
4. W3C Visual inspection, does the page tested contain information to promote accessibility for all citizens. A positive score of one was allocated to each item the page contained that promoted accessibility. The maximum number of positive items a page could score was 24, as in the example below.
Websites with these icons displayed validated or were accessible.
There will be no diference between the mean error scores of websites from America, England and Australia, on three measures.
There will be no diference between the mean number of accessibility features in websites from America, England and Australia.
| Variable | Result | Variable | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| W3C Errors | Errors | Links | PASS |
| CHARSET | ISO-8859-1 | HTML version | 4.01 Tran |
| Page Language | English | HTML color | PASS |
| NOSCRIPT | PASS | HTML link text | PASS |
| image borders | PASS | Rollovers | PASS |
| Stylesheets | PASS | Meta Copyright | AGIMO |
| Meta modified | 2004-06-30 | Meta parents children | PASS |
| Cynthia™ 508 | PASS | Large Text | PASS |
| Cynthia™ One | PASS | ALT tags | PASS |
| Cynthia™ Two | PASS | LONGDESC | PASS |
| Cynthia™ Three | PASS | Skip navigation | PASS |
| Tab index | PASS | Keyboard Shortcuts | PASS |
| Possible Page features | 24 |
| Website | Australian Sites | UK Sites | American Sites | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Errors | Features | Errors | Features | Errors | Features | |
| Heads of State | ||||||
| Ministers | ||||||
| Ministers. | ||||||
| Social security. | ||||||
| Social security. | ||||||
| IT Office | ||||||
| IT Office | ||||||
| Regional government | ||||||
| Blind Institutes | ||||||
| Surgeons | ||||||
| Universities | ||||||
| ∑ errors | ||||||
| Mean errors | ||||||
| Standard Deviation | ||||||
| ∑ features | ||||||
| Mean features | ||||||
| Standard deviation | ||||||
Next webpages: Australia : United Kingdom : America : Results
Heretic Press web survey page.
WebSurvey.html
W3C test Heretic Press
Verified File Name: Heretic Press
Date and Time: 20th December 2006
Result: PASSED validation, No HTML errors
Cynthia Says® - Web Accessibility Report
Verified File Name: Heretic Press
Date and Time: 23rd April 2006 03:30 PM
PASSED Accessibility Verification priority 1, 2 and 3.
Validation Error Score WebSurvey.html No Errors
Page Accessibility features WebSurvey.html 24
Contact Heretic Press for an accessibility review of your website. Our editor is recognised internationally for accessible online publishing and he is an experienced educational publisher of science history and psychology textbooks and needs the work. Audits will help you identify current accessibility problems and provide guidance for compliance with international standards and best practice.
Heretic Press Accessibility Statement
Heretic Press Guide to writing HTML
Contact Heretic Press
Canadian site study
Dutch accessibility study
Web Page Accessibility: Research Studies
50 US sites "Neither the mandate nor the motivation".
eGovernment Site Credibility: Comparing Speed, Accessibility, Typos, and Validity eGovernment Site Credibility
EU
American Study
Australian University tests
University website
