Accessibility Validation and Certification

Technosite, the Fundación ONCE’s company specialising in technology and disability, has certified the accessibility of over 50 Web sites in application of the W3C/WAI’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0).

In 2003, with the aim of making the certification process more objective, Technosite drew up a Methodology for Evaluating Accessible Web Sites (MEWA) which has been further developed thanks to the experience gained by the company while participating in several accessibility projects, such as evaluation, consultancy, developing Web sites, user testing, and so on.

With the development of the Support-EAM project Technosite has been a founding partner of a European consortium which has defined a Europe-wide standard evaluation methodology for accessibility (UWEM).

In 2007, arising from UWEM, the European quality label for accessible Web sites, Euracert, was launched, and Technosite is the only Spanish organisation to grant this internationally recognised certification.

EURACERT Label

The Euracert label is a certification issued by those national organisations which have signed the Letter of Understanding: the BrailleNet Association in France, ONA in Belgium and Technosite in Spain. Other certification organisations are expected to join shortly.

The Technosite Label

Technosite has adapted its MEWA to the UWEM in order to ensure full compatibility between the two methodologies. In this way, Technosite´s accessibility label can be issued together with the Euracert label once the evaluation has been carried out to check for accessibility issues at WCAG 1.0 Conformance Levels "A" or "Double A".

A Web site´s accessibility certificate is valid for 2 years. Once the label has been issued, Technosite´s evaluators will carry out automated reviews on a three-monthly basis and manual reviews each six months to ensure the certificate´s validity.

Certification process

The phases of the certification process developed by Technosite are as follows:

• Initial Accessibility Validation:
  In order to avoid later accessibility issues in the certification process, Technosite carries out an initial validation to check the Web site does not contain serious barriers to accessibility.
• Certification Evaluation
  Technosite will draw up a validation report to indicate the level of compliance to the conformance level requested. If the results are favourable, the Technosite and Euracert Web Content Accessibility labels will be issued. If the report is unfavourable, a period of time will be given during which to address the accessibility issues detected.
• Periodic reviews
  Technosite will carry out a manual review of the Web site each six months and draw up reports highlighting the accessibility issues detected. Automated reviews will also be carried out each three months