"Plenty of useful information and you can get at it."

We used a two-phase, four-step methodology.

Phase 1 used a combination of automated testing (step 1) and manual verification (step 2).

Phase 2 comprised:

"A pain having to get mouse right in circle to fill in form. Will be interesting to see the new site."

• a technical test of the remaining WCAG level 1 and key e-government and WCAG 2 and 3 guidelines (step 3). Sites received a score for each checkpoint/question. These scores were then compiled to give a total
• a user test (step 4).

Those sites that were tested during Phase 2 were also assessed for their accessibility to specific groups disadvantaged by non-compliance (vision impaired, blind, mobility impaired, reading impaired).

Sites undergoing redesign

"Site was really well constructed and laid out. Everything seemed to be where it should be and was easy, and more importantly, logical. Some sites have so much information in obscure areas it is hard to extract what you require. Good site."

We recognise that websites are continually being redeveloped and relaunched. Several sites had a major upgrade during the month of the survey (June, with some clarification testing in July 2005), and others will no doubt be relaunched between the survey and the publication of this report.

We have attempted to avoid a "skewed" result where different steps in the survey were completed before and after a major upgrade of a site, in some cases redoing earlier steps in order to ensure that later results applied to the same site.

However, this survey is intended to be a "snapshot", showing the compliance level at a particular point in time (July 2005).

Sampling strategy

In steps 2 and 3 of the survey, and in step 1 for those sites not susceptible to the crawling software used by our testing tool, we used a sampling strategy for tests. For each test, we always tested the home page. We then selected several other pages from various parts of the site, with a bias towards sections of the site that were obviously aimed at the general public.

The methodology is described in detail in Appendix 2.