Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Accessibility of Internet websites through time

2003; Association for Computing Machinery; Issue: 77-78 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1145/1029014.1028638

1558-2337

Stephanie Hackett, Bambang Parmanto, Xiaoming Zeng,

Assistive Technology in Communication and Mobility

Using Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a random sample of websites from 1997-2002 were retrospectively analyzed for effects that technology has on accessibility for persons with disabilities and compared to government websites. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's HSD were used to determine differences among years. Random websites become progressively inaccessible through the years (p<0.0001) [as shown by increasing Web Accessibility Barrier (WAB) scores], while complexity of the websites increased through the years (p<0.0001). Pearson's correlation (r) was performed to correlate accessibility and complexity: r=0.463 (p<0.01). Government websites remain accessible while increasing in complexity: r=0.14 (p<0.041). It is concluded that increasing complexity, oftentimes caused by adding new technology to a Web page, inadvertently contributes to increasing barriers to accessibility for persons with disabilities.