[Accessibleweb] RE: UW accessibility ranking

[R. Benson]

At the CDC, we run AccVerify and AccRepair also made by HiSoftware.

--
Ryan E. Benson



On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Terrill Thompson <tft at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> Hi Gina,

>

> Thanks for organizing this - looks like an interesting tool. As for competitors, I think "none" may be understating things a bit.

>

> A few others that come to mind are:

>

> PowerMapper

> http://www.powermapper.com/

>

> Total Validator:

> http://www.totalvalidator.com/

>

> HiSoftware Compliance Sherriff

> http://www.hisoftware.com/products/compliancesheriffoverview.htm

>

> Watchfire (the company that acquired the accessibility checker Bobby) used to be in this sphere, but they in turn were acquired by IBM. So IBM now has a family of relevant solutions:

> http://www-01.ibm.com/software/rational/offerings/websecurity/webcompliance.html

>

> Usablenet is another company that once had a family of site checkers, but it looks like now they've migrated entirely to doing site transformation (creating on-the-fly mobile and "accessible" versions of sites):

> http://usablenet.com/

>

> We can talk about this on Thursday, but if you'd like to evaluate some of these solutions and compare them with siteimprove.com, I'd be happy to help with that.

>

> Terrill Thompson

> Technology Accessibility Specialist

> DO-IT, UW Accessible Technology

> UW Information Technology

> University of Washington

> tft at uw.edu | 206/221-4168

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: accessibleweb-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:accessibleweb-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Gina Hills

> Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 1:48 PM

> To: Jennifer L. Ward; accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

> Subject: RE: [Accessibleweb] RE: UW accessibility ranking

>

>

> If you are not on the uwweb mail list, we are going to see a demonstration at next week's Web Council of the site checker I mentioned. You are all welcome. Here are the details:

>

> Next meeting: Thursday, Oct. 21 9-10:30 a.m., Odegaard 220.

>

> The agenda for the meeting includes:

>

> A WebEx demonstration by Scott Mark from www.siteimprove.com of an online site checker that crawls the Web and gives a detailed report on bad links, potential misspellings, accessibility errors/mistakes, site inventory and more. It's not free, but I think it's worth a little tire-kicking and discussion.

>

> According to Scott, the SiteCheck service includes, but is not limited to:

>        A new check every five days

>        Checking multiple websites/domains

>        LinkCheck, SpellCheck, Accessibility and SiteInventory

>        Unlimited Users and Content Groups

>        Setup and Support

>

> The UW Web is so vast and has so many owners that it's hard to know where to start to get a handle on broken pages/links, inaccessible pages, typos - even site inventory. Siteimprove says it can help us begin to quantify all that - and know what to fix without looking for a needle in a haystack. I've seen a demonstration and asked if they would be willing to do it again for our larger group. I hope after next week's presentation we can discuss our options and share ideas. If anyone knows of another service out there that promises similar site checking, let me know and we'll invite them to present too at another meeting. I did ask Scott about competitors, and he said they have none. But we, of course, are always pleased to consider all options.

>

> Also, if you would like your server/site crawled specifically, let me know ASAP. We won't be able to show everyone's results, but I'd be happy to talk with Scott about showing specific results as time permits. See you next week! - gina

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: accessibleweb-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:accessibleweb-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Jennifer Ward

> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:42 PM

> To: accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

> Subject: Re: [Accessibleweb] RE: UW accessibility ranking

>

> What's the name of the tool?

>

> Thanks,

> Jennifer

>

> On 10/12/2010 8:37 AM, Gina Hills wrote:

>> I sat through a demonstration yesterday of a web tool that checks links, spelling, accessibility and other things near and dear to our hearts. (Blind, non-weighted testing like the Illinois study.) The demo examined the first 2,000 pages on www, and on the accessibility front, it was like 80 percent fail. (I suspect similar results on depts and other servers around campus.) The presenter correctly pointed out that in a place like a university where there are thousands of page owners, you're bound to have people who don't know that alt tags aren't optional, for example.

>>

>> What I found useful about this site-checker is that it points specifically to what on the pages isn't accessible (or misspelled or has a bad link etc.) and gives you advice on fixing it, plus it gives you links to relevant tutorials and such. I think one of our greatest challenges with the bazillion pages on the UW Web is the fact that ownership constantly changes, many light users don't have a clue about accessibility or good web coding, and finding problems is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It struck me that this tool might help us finally start getting a handle on bad links, spelling, css, accessibility etc. I'm going to see if I can get a presentation for the next Web Council or some other venue so more of the UW Web community can review the possibilities. Perhaps through some campus partnerships we could come up with some money to finally start identifying -- in real time on real pages -- where we need work.

>>

>> -----Original Message-----

>> From: accessibleweb-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:accessibleweb-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Terrill Thompson

>> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 6:17 AM

>> To: 'accessibleweb at u.washington.edu'

>> Subject: [Accessibleweb] UW accessibility ranking

>>

>> Hi All,

>>

>> I'm here at EDUCAUSE where Jon Gunderson of the University of Illinois is unveiling his annual rankings of colleges and universities, overall and by conference, on web accessibility, as determined via an automated analysis using the Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE).

>>

>> The UW didn't do so well. We're ranked 113th out of 183 schools:

>> http://webaccessibility.cita.illinois.edu/data/schools/

>>

>> And in the Pac 10, well, let's just hope we do better at football:

>> http://webaccessibility.cita.illinois.edu/data/conference/20/

>>

>> Keep in mind that FAE is an automated tool, so it doesn't take into account issues that can only be evaluated manually, and it has no way of prioritizing its various measures, so issues that really aren't a big deal in context end up getting the same weight as issues that present major barriers. These same problems though are true for all schools, so it's hard to argue that they affected our ranking.

>>

>> Regardless of whether we have full confidence in the methodology, I think the takeaway is that we may have some problems with our web accessibility. People on this list have demonstrated an interest in and commitment to accessibility, but that alone may not have resulted in a university website that is accessible to all students. The question is: What more is needed? How can we improve accessibility of *all* UW web pages?

>>

>> Terry

>>

>> Terrill Thompson

>> Technology Accessibility Specialist

>> DO-IT, UW Accessible Technology

>> UW Information Technology

>> University of Washington

>> tft at uw.edu | 206/221-4168

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> Accessibleweb mailing list

>> Accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

>> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/accessibleweb

>> _______________________________________________

>> Accessibleweb mailing list

>> Accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

>> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/accessibleweb

>

> _______________________________________________

> Accessibleweb mailing list

> Accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/accessibleweb

> _______________________________________________

> Accessibleweb mailing list

> Accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/accessibleweb

> _______________________________________________

> Accessibleweb mailing list

> Accessibleweb at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/accessibleweb

>