Usability and Accessibility Evaluation of Some Selected University Websites in Africa

Abstract

This study is on evaluation of usability and accessibility of some selected universities websites in Africa. University website pages frequently contain critical data about academic resources, campus events, and administrative policies. Most universities websites do not totally conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) standard, hence making the websites not easily accessible by users. Data for the evaluation were collected from the websites of the twelve different universities (three universities selected from a country in the four regions of Africa). Four tools were used for the analysis of the websites base on the categories, a tool picked from each category (Colour Contract Check, Web Accessibility Versatile Evaluator “Wave”. Taw and Achecker). Based on the results gotten from WAVE tool, Tunisia universities websites have the highest total errors of 152. The results gotten from TAW tool shows that South African universities websites have the highest problem with a total of 381. The Achecker result shows that Tunisia universities websites have more known problems with a total number of 356. The final result shows that University of Nigeria Nsukka has the best websites with least errors