Current developments in improving digital accessibility of web surveys |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Marika de Bruijne (Centerdata) |
| Coordinator 2 | Ms Mara Verheijen (Centerdata) |
Everybody, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, should be able to fill out web surveys that are offered to the whole population. This session focuses on the current developments to improve the digital accessibility of web surveys. Under web surveys, we understand surveys offered via all different devices with internet access.
A large part of the population in Europe lives with disabilities. According to the WHO, this is about 135 million in the WHO European Region. Persons with disabilities include “people with long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments that, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation society on an equal basis with others”, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
As of June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) will be enforced. This EU directive requires that digital products and services, such as websites, are accessible to persons with disabilities. How should survey researchers respond to these requirements? Which impairments of respondents should web surveys take into account? The established standard to assess digital accessibility is provided by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. These guidelines are based on four main principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR). But how should the WCAG and their principles be applied to web surveys?
For this session, we invite papers and presentations that address the aforementioned questions and, for example, one of the following topics:
• Best practices for developing digitally accessible web surveys
• Applying WCAG to web surveys
• Providing web surveys to persons with physical or mental disabilities
• Providing web surveys to elderly people
• Improving respondents’ user experience by adding accessibility features to web surveys
We invite both survey methodologists as well as survey practitioners to present their current findings.