Abstract:

Organisations are making increasing use of the World Wide Web for the dissemination of information to actual and potential customers. However, despite the existence of clear guidelines for web site accessibility, the visually impaired appear to be excluded from the target markets of most businesses. This study assesses the rates of website compliance of 70 South African businesses with the minimum standard prescribed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium, and compares the results with those obtained for an equivalent sample of International websites. The poor rate of compliance demonstrated by South African sites (4.3%) was only slightly lower than that of the non-South African sites tested, with non-profit organisations having the highest levels of accessibility.