Web accessibility evaluation of top-ranking university Web sites in Spain, Chile and Mexico

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the web accessibility of home pages of universities in Spain, Chile and Mexico. The sample used in this study was the 15 top universities listed in the ranking Webometrics. The study has been carried out using automatic tools in order to analyze the level of compliance with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The results reveal that the selected Web sites have barriers of access to information and that these difficulties are even greater in the case of those who make use of assistive technology. Users of the analyzed Web sites can encounter difficulties mainly with the perception of information and with navigating the site, just as previous studies of web accessibility have shown. This paper concludes that the 3 analyzed countries show low levels of web accessibility on the selected Web sites, proving that there still exist many shortcomings with regard to meeting the regulation and respecting the fundamental rights of all people.