Digital accessibility means that websites and digital services are designed in such a way that they can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities.Digital accessibility means that websites and digital services are designed in such a way that they can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities.
Web services provided by the public sector and government-related companies are required to be accessible [1]. The accessibility requirements are defined in standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The standards specify requirements such as the contrast of the colors used and the font sizes.
With the introduction of the Accessibility Reinforcement Act in Germany and the EU and the revision of the Disability Discrimination Act in Switzerland, private companies are also increasingly seeing themselves obliged to improve the accessibility of their digital services [2]. However, despite regulations, public sector websites (and private companies too, of course) have some catching up to do when it comes to accessibility.
This is exactly where the Barrier-free project comes in. It automatically tests websites for accessibility problems, evaluates the test results and makes them available online. Around 2000 municipal websites and 500 general websites are currently being scanned. The aim is to raise public awareness of the need to improve the current state of accessibility in Switzerland. Data will also be collected so that the progress over time can be analyzed. A publication of the data in the sense of OpenData is planned.
This project was started as a bachelor's thesis by Pascal Lehmann and Michael Hofmann at the School Of Computer Science at the OST in the academic year HS23/24 [3] and is being further developed by the I3 institute. The current prototype is publicly available.
