Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify Web accessibility issues of healthcare websites of the Korean government and public agencies by evaluating these websites' accessibility in accordance with the Korean Web Contents Accessibility Guideline. This study conducted both automated and expert testing to assess the accessibility of a total of 27 health-related websites. The results of the assessment which was conducted in two stages indicated that institutions such as the National Hospital and National Rehabilitation Center demonstrated almost no Web accessibility error. In addition, the Korea Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Health Services Agency, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency attained very high web accessibility. However, the results of an expert evaluation highlighted that there were considerable errors in providing appropriate alternative text, which was not found in the automated test, and the color contrast of the text content did not comply with Web accessibility standard. Therefore, these websites did not support web accessibility for the sight-impaired. Furthermore, the present study found that it was difficult to deliver accurate information to users due to errors in the default language display and markup, and also, issues of skipping repeated content, content linearization, and compliance with keyboard use were considered as challenges that might arise for people with sight, cognitive and mobility impairments with respect to Web accessibility. It is the first study that evaluated accessibility of healthcare websites of the Korean government and public agencies based on the Korean Web Contents Accessibility Guideline. The present study made a contribution to research on Web accessibility by conducting expert testing, which provided a more complete assessment that identified the degree and specific issues of accessibility errors when compared to automated testing.