imergo®. A framework to support automated standards compliance, quality assurance methods and accessibility for web portals

Despite the fact that the first version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are more than five years old, the implementation of Web accessibility worldwide is extremely low, as proved by the recent study of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC, 2004) in the UK. This situation could be attributed to a lack of commitment from the Web industry, but it shall also be admitted that there is a huge gap between the industry needs in this area and the existing support tools. This paper will present some of the numerous limitations of existing evaluation and repair tools and will introduce a new tool developed by the authors, recently launched to the market, to overcome them and support the industry by the implementation of quality assurance processes and workflow procedures that include accessibility.