5 ms·

It might be from this 2004 study of UK government sites [http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/website-access-denied-to-disabled-people

It might be from this 2004 study of UK government sites [http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/website-access-denied-to-disabled-people http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticl...]. A 2007 study found 'less than half' but doesn't try and give a specific number [http://staff.washington.edu/tft/research/international/ http://staff.washington.edu/tft/research/international/]. That study also refers to a UN snapshot study in 2006 that found <10% of a small group of sites were accessible, and I also found this 2006 analysis of British commercial sites saying that 75% of them had accessability problems [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nomensa+claims+75%25+of+UK%27s+FTSE+100+companies+fail+to+meet+DDA...-a0145071395 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nomensa+claims+75%25+of+UK%27s...]

jacalata 13y ago
And while plain text sites have hopefully improved in six-eight years, I suspect that the rise of rich web apps (as mentioned in other comments) would mean that overall percentages of accessible sites could have remained the same or even fallen since then.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Depending how the rich web app is made, I reckon it has the possibility of making things more accessible. With many jQuery based sites it's not uncommon to load all the content for the site in one go, leaving content with visibility hidden or with 0 opacity, meaning that people with screen readers may have tons and tons of content to sort through to figure out what is relevant. Newer template engines make this better since templates are likely to be stored as Javascript objects/functions that are written to the DOM when they are relevant.
  - mwcampbell 13y ago
    Screen readers generally handle "display: none" and "visibility: hidden" correctly.
jareds 13y ago
As a blind developer I'd estimate that 90% of sites are accessible. I consider something accessible if I can use it even if it isn't intuitive. I could see how other people with disabilities who aren’t as comfortable with assistive technologies would have a harder time.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - jareds 13y ago
    Thanks, fixed that. I’ve never had a strong opinion on suing over inaccessible sites since I’ve never run into a public site I’ve had to use that was completely inaccessible. The issues I’ve had with accessibility have been more with software. If I was going to suggest anyone be sued at this point it would be Microsoft. While there desktop OS is accessible neither Windows Phone 7 or 8 is. I could give them a pass on 7 especially if they knew it was a stopgap measure. Windows Phone 8 shares common code with Windows 8 though. One would hope this includes accessibility API’s but Microsoft has made no statements that I can find about whether they will ever include screen reading software in Windows Phone 8 or at least provide an API so someone else can.

jacalata 13y ago

And while plain text sites have hopefully improved in six-eight years, I suspect that the rise of rich web apps (as mentioned in other comments) would mean that overall percentages of accessible sites could have remained the same or even fallen since then.

malandrew 13y ago
Depending how the rich web app is made, I reckon it has the possibility of making things more accessible. With many jQuery based sites it's not uncommon to load all the content for the site in one go, leaving content with visibility hidden or with 0 opacity, meaning that people with screen readers may have tons and tons of content to sort through to figure out what is relevant. Newer template engines make this better since templates are likely to be stored as Javascript objects/functions that are written to the DOM when they are relevant.
- mwcampbell 13y ago
  Screen readers generally handle "display: none" and "visibility: hidden" correctly.

jareds 13y ago

As a blind developer I'd estimate that 90% of sites are accessible. I consider something accessible if I can use it even if it isn't intuitive. I could see how other people with disabilities who aren’t as comfortable with assistive technologies would have a harder time.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- jareds 13y ago
  Thanks, fixed that. I’ve never had a strong opinion on suing over inaccessible sites since I’ve never run into a public site I’ve had to use that was completely inaccessible. The issues I’ve had with accessibility have been more with software. If I was going to suggest anyone be sued at this point it would be Microsoft. While there desktop OS is accessible neither Windows Phone 7 or 8 is. I could give them a pass on 7 especially if they knew it was a stopgap measure. Windows Phone 8 shares common code with Windows 8 though. One would hope this includes accessibility API’s but Microsoft has made no statements that I can find about whether they will ever include screen reading software in Windows Phone 8 or at least provide an API so someone else can.