1. WebAIM Screen Reader Survey Results
WashU Web Accessibility Users Group
March 2019

2. Topics
The WebAIM Million
WebAIM Screen Reader Survey Results

3. About WebAIM WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) found in 1999
Non-profit is one of the leading providers of web accessibility expertise internationally.
Organization within the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University in Logan Utah.
Provides free web accessibility evaluation tool (WAVE)

4. WebAIM Million Intro
In February of 2019 WebAIM conducted an evaluation of the top 1,000,000 home pages using their WAVE tool.
Evaluated against WCAG 2 compliance

5. WCAG Conformance 97.8% of home pages had detectable WCAG 2 errors!
Includes only automatically detectable errors. Does not include errors requiring manual testing (i.e. keyboard accessible, contextually appropriate alt. text, etc.)

6. Most Common Errors WCAG Failure Type # of home pages % of home pages
Low contrast text
852,868
85.3%
Missing alt text for images
679,964
68%
Empty Links
581,408
58.1%
Missing form input labels
528,482
52.8%
Missing document language
329,612
33.1%
Empty buttons
250,367
25%

7. Missing Alternative Text
There were 36,713,043 images in the sample, or 36.7 images per home page on average
33.6% of all images (12.3 per page on average) had missing alternative text
Not including images tagged as decorative (alt = “”)
18.5% of all images (6.7 per page on average) were linked images with missing or empty alternative text, resulting in both an alternative text issue and a link lacking any description.

8. Skip Links
Skip links are keyboard activated links that allow users to jump to page sections to avoid tab heavy regions.
WashU main site (wustl.edu), The Source, and WashU Sites web theme are local examples with skip links.
9.6% of homepages had skip links
But of those with skip links, 14% were broken.

9. Screen Reader Survey Intro
First survey completed in January 2009
Received 1,121 responses from screen reader users.
Follow up surveys completed in:
October 2009
December 2012
January 2014
July 2015
October 2017

10. Primary Screen Reader Screen Reader # of Respondents % of Respondents
JAWS*
811
46.6%
NVDA
555
31.9%
VoiceOver (Apple )
204
11.7%
ZoomText 42
2.4%
System Access or SA to Go 30
1.7%
Window-Eyes 27
1.5%
ChromeVox 7
0.4%
Narrator 6
0.3%
Other 60
3.4%
*JAWS version 17 Home license $895

11. Screen Reader / Browser Combos
# of Respondents
% of Respondents
JAWS + Internet Explorer
424
24.7%
NVDA + Firefox
405
23.6%
JAWS + Firefox
260
15.1%
VoiceOver + Safari
172
10%
JAWS + Chrome
112
6.5%
NVDA + Chrome
102
5.9%
NVDA + Internet Explorer 40
2.3%
VoiceOver + Chrome 24
1.4%
Other Combinations
180
10.5%

12. Mobile Screen Readers Mobile Screen Reader % of Respondents VoiceOver
69%
TalkBack for Android
29.5%
Voice Assistant
5.2%
Mobile Accessibility for Android
Nuance Talks
1.9%
MobileSpeak
1.5%
Other
3.2%

13. Mobile vs. Desktop/Laptop Usage
Do you use a screen reader most often on a desktop/laptop computer or a mobile/tablet device?
Response
# of Respondents
% of Respondents
Desktop/Laptop
528
34.6%
I use mobile/tablet and desktop/laptop screen readers about the same
825
54%
Mobile/Tablet device
174
11.4%

14. Finding Information
When trying to find information on a lengthy web page, which of the following are you most likely to do first?
Response
# of Respondents
% of Respondents
Navigate through the headings of the page
1,180
67.5%
Use the “Find” feature
252
14.4%
Navigate through the links of the page
118
6.8%
Navigate through the landmarks/regions 69
3.9%
Reading through the page
128
7.3%

15. Heading Structures
Which of the following page heading structures is easiest for you?
Response
# of Respondents
% of Respondents
One first level heading that contains the site name 95
6.6%
One first level heading that contains the document title
858
60%
Two first level headings, one for the site name and one for the document title
476
33.3%

16. Locating Search How do you usually locate the site search? Response
% of Respondents
Jump to the first form element in a page
36%
Jump to the first text/edit field on the page
25%
Find the word “Search”
18%
Tab through page elements until the search form is encountered 8%
Read through the page content until the search form is encountered 6%
Jump to the first button on the page and go back one element 2%
No Response 4%

17. Problem Areas Users asked to select top three problem areas:
CAPTCHA - images presenting text used to verify that you are a human user
Screens or parts of screens that change unexpectedly
Links or buttons that do not make sense
The presence of inaccessible Flash content
Lack of keyboard accessibility
Complex or difficult forms
Images with missing or improper descriptions (alt text)
Missing or improper headings
Too many links or navigation items
Complex data tables
Inaccessible or missing search functionality
Lack of "skip to main content" or "skip navigation" links

18. Problem Areas

19. Resources
The WebAIM Million – Accessibility Analysis of the top 1,000,000 home pages
WebAIM Screen Reader Surverys
WashU Web Accessibility Users Group