Accessibility Analysis of Worldwide COVID-19-Related Information Portals

Patricia Acosta-Vargas (), Sylvia Novillo-Villegas, Belén Salvador-Acosta, Manuel Calvopina, Nikolaos Kyriakidis, Esteban Ortiz-Prado and Luis Salvador-Ullauri
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Patricia Acosta-Vargas: Intelligent and Interactive Systems Laboratory, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito 170125, Ecuador
Sylvia Novillo-Villegas: Intelligent and Interactive Systems Laboratory, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito 170125, Ecuador
Belén Salvador-Acosta: Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito 170125, Ecuador
Manuel Calvopina: One Health Research Group, Universidad de las Américas, Quito 170125, Ecuador
Nikolaos Kyriakidis: One Health Research Group, Universidad de las Américas, Quito 170125, Ecuador
Esteban Ortiz-Prado: One Health Research Group, Universidad de las Américas, Quito 170125, Ecuador
Luis Salvador-Ullauri: Department of Software and Computing Systems, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-15

Abstract: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, communication technology has demonstrated its usefulness in sharing and receiving health data and communicating with the public. This study evaluated the accessibility of 199 websites containing official COVID-19 information related to medical schools, governments, ministries, and medical associations, obtained from the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research website. We used the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 to evaluate web accessibility, using a six-phase process with an automatic review tool. The study results reveal that the highest number of barriers encountered are concentrated in the perceivable principle with 6388 errors (77.8%), followed by operability with 1457 (17.7%), then robustness with 291 (3.5%), and finally understandability with 78 errors (0.9%). This study concludes that most COVID-19-related websites that provide information on the context of the pandemic do not have an adequate level of accessibility. This study can contribute as a guide for designing inclusive websites; web accessibility should be reviewed periodically due to technological advances and the need to adapt to these changes.

Keywords: accessibility; analysis; COVID-19; websites; web content accessibility guidelines 2.1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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