"There is a lot of text information on the home page that is not supported by visual information. This may be overwhelming or difficult for people whose disability affects their English literacy."

People’s experience of the web depends very much on the barriers they encounter when they try to use it – and this varies from person to person. In this section, we explore the priority issues for each of four user groups represented by our test panel:

• low vision
• blind
• mobility impaired
• reading impaired.

We then comment on testers experience with sites tested in Phase 2.

Low-vision

"It is hard to see the side menus, with the text being white on light blue."

Priority issues for low-vision users are contrast and fluid design. Other important issues are:

• menus and other navigation details in text, rather than graphics
• separation of structure and design – this allows knowledgeable users to substitute their own style sheets, giving them access to an otherwise inaccessible site
• well-structured documents, with plenty of visual cues to indicate structure
• choice of colour – orange is particularly tiring to our low vision testers
• graphics that supplement, illustrate and explain the text
• warning if the focal point changes from one window to another
• documents in html (so that contrast and size can be easily adjusted).

Comments from the testers indicate that low vision users may be less well served by New Zealand government websites than mobility impaired or blind users (though their user experience is slightly better than that of reading impaired users).

Top websites for this group are those of the E-government Unit, the Bioethics Council and the Ministry for the Environment.

Blind

"The site did have quite a few extraneous characters in it like a "shim" word that kept appearing and being repeated. I note there are a number of pdf files in there."

Keyboard navigation, good text alternatives, documents in html and good html coding of headings, forms and tables are all very important to blind users. In addition, adherence to formal published grammars is important, since this provides a standard for creators of screen readers to test their products on, and codes and scripts that do not conform may not work with screen readers. Pop-up windows that take the focal point away from the main site may be very confusing, and a user may become lost and unable to navigate back to the original site.

New Zealand sites varied widely, with this particular user group reporting the widest range of ratings – from the second highest overall to the lowest.

Particularly good sites for this group were those of the E-Government Unit, the Office for Senior Citizens and Reduce your Rubbish.

Mobility-impaired

"I would have given this site a fantastic rating but for two drawbacks. That it is mouse-dependent and there is no information about its accessibility through a keyboard."

Mobility-impaired users are a very diverse group, with a range of accessibility needs. Our testers include a person with tetraplegia who uses voice commands and a forehead wand, testers with the use of only one hand, testers with poor co-ordination, and testers with severe tremors.

Most of these testers find keyboard commands – such as access keys – helpful. Small focal points are a problem, as are any actions that require precise mouse movements. Developers should be aware that mobility impairments are often the result of degenerative disorders or accidents, and so users may well have age-related vision impairments as well.

Particularly good sites for this group were the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 4 million careful owners, New Zealand Embassies and Reduce your rubbish sites.

Reading-impaired

"The language used for some of the links is confusing. e.g: what information you would find under "Reports" and "Reviews" could easily be confounded by people who do not have a high language level."

This group of users – arguably the largest group likely to face barriers to Internet use – are also those most poorly served by the sites tested. Users may be reading impaired for a variety of reasons: for example, they may be poorly educated, or have an intellectual impairment, or have English as a second language. There are a variety of strategies for making sites more accessible to such users – including using plain English, active sentences, lots of headings and sub-headings, graphical illustrations, and lists.

The four sites that were found particularly good by this group were: Office for Disability Issues, Population Statistics, E-government and Reduce your rubbish.