Summary- Accessibility Election
Summary-Who Wins the Accessibility Election?
Following my analysis of the 3 main political parties’ websites I have summarised the results below;
| Feature | Labour | Conservative | Lib Dem# |
| W3C | x | x | ✓* |
| alt attributes | x | x | x |
| 404 Headings | x | ✓ | x |
| Proper use of h1 | x | ✓* | ✓* |
| No Hidden text | x | x | x |
| Accessibility – Colour | x | x | x |
| Accessibility – WCAGv2 | x | x | x |
Notes
* please see below for more details regarding these partial passes.
Below you will find further details relating to each criterion. For more details please see the UK Political Party Website Analysis.
| Feature | Labour | Conservative | Lib Dem# |
| W3C Html | fail | fail | pass* |
| W3C errors | 84 | 7 | 0 |
| W3C warnings | 45 | 2 | 0 |
| alt missing | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| 404 headings | fail | pass | fail |
| filesize | 65kb | 81kb | 11kb |
| Proper use of h1 | no | yes but incorrect usage | yes but incorrect usage |
| Hidden text | possibly yes | no apart from h1 | no apart from h1 |
| Accessibility - Colour |
40 warnings | 16 fails 16 warnings |
5 fails 57 warnings |
| Accessibility – WCAGv2 | 25 errors 1 warning |
4 errors 2 warnings |
1 error 10 warnings |
| Link errors | 0 | 13 | 2 |
| text/code | 5.97% | 6.04% | 15.43% |
| PageRank | 6 | 7 | 5 |
Notes
# the Lib Dem website would not allow analysis of the home page due to a 302 redirect on the home page to a splash page hence the page “What We Stand For” was analysed.
* the W3C pass is misleading as there were 10 alt attributes with no text in them
My conclusion is that all 3 main political parties in the UK are only paying lip service to the guidelines on disability accessibility and cannot even ensure their own websites are set up correctly despite the considerable funds at their disposal. If they so dismiss the guidelines and ignore the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, an act made by this country’s Parliament, then how can we expect any of them to run this country properly. Constructing a website properly is a trivial matter compared to, say, declaring war, but how can any of them be trusted to look after our welfare, our soldiers, our education and our children and health when they can’t even get this right.
Gill Keeble
S3 Web Design and SEO Commercial
copyright 2010 Gill Keeble
Related posts:
- Who Wins the Accessibility Election?
- Postscript to 3 Party Websites
- The Labour Party Website
- The Conservative Party Website
- The Liberal Democrat Party Website
Tags: Conservative Party, disability accessibility, html, Labour Party, Liberal Democrat, W3C, WCAG