This information is being shared because I was seeing so many posts on the various blindness related mailing lists and such a large number of my friends who are blind were expressing challenges they were having on the site but lacked the technical background to identify the programming and development issues that were causing inconsistencies and issues with their technology. It is important to note that In addition to impacting blind & low vision users, many of the WCAG issues identified in the report would also impact users with disabilities other than blindness and those with multiple disabilities.
The CNIB Library uses the Iguana platform, he application platform (Iguana) and its previous platform (vubis) are known to have accessibility issues. Unfortunately, in the case of iguana because of the way the application has been architected, it will likely require a significant amount of work to fix the underlying issues.
A strict evaluation of the CNIB Library was conducted on April 5th, 2012. The site was evaluated against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 to assess conformance. A sample of the most common screens was selected . These screens include some of the most common screens a user of the library will visit.
Overall, for a web application, the general level of accessibility of this application is rated significantly below average. The site failed several critical checkpoints. The minimum expected level of conformance of an application is the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guideline v2,(WCAG 2.0) AA level with an attempt to strive towards AAA conformance. This application does not meet the A, AA or AAA level of the standard. This indicates that there has been a lack of attention to defining accessibility requirements during critical stages of planning, procurement and testing prior to the application’s purchase.
Not meeting even the A level of conformance guarantees that persons with disabilities will find it difficult or impossible to Perceive, Understand and Operate the Iguana application.
