a11ystudy

Created as a one-semester Independent Work project during my junior year, this project was an exploration of the evolution of web accessibility over time, during which I created two tools for the collection and analysis of time-series data on web content accessibility: “a11ystudy”, a command-line interface for the evaluation of archived web pages, and “a11ystudy-web”, a companion web application allowing users to visualize exported data to explore trends in web accessibility. These tools were used in conjunction to yield a sample dataset that documents the conformance of the top 100 webpages to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines from 2012 to the present, from which some interesting trends were found through a cursory analysis. In addition, both tools were evaluted by and refined through collaboration with faculty members of Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities.

In the future, I hope to revisit this project so as to create a tool or service that enables individuals, regardless of technical expertise, to interrogate the past and present state of web accessibility and pursue a more equitable future for digital technologies.