Abstract
As the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated e-commerce, website accessibility is gaining relevance for establishing equal conditions for people with disabilities. Even if the regulations may be similar between Northamerican countries, the different states of law are generating problems regarding the internationalization of the ibusinesses and accessibility rights for the visually disabled. This study reviews the public policy effectiveness for the visually impaired to understand the implications of website accessibility in the country and to consider how these regulations may affect the internationalization of the Mexican firm. This exploratory research follows a mixed-method approach. The authors did n=6 semi-structured interviews with key players of the visually disabled community and then evaluated n=366 websites with a web scraping tool and using principal components analysis and non-parametric statistics to compare their accessibility by type of website that is paramount for complying with the current regulations. The authors found that even if there is a regulation for providing equal access to websites, the state of the law is insufficient and non enforced for private and public institutions. Regarding the quantitative analysis, the e-commerce websites were the worst evaluated. Both analyses showed that e-commerce sites that are not complying with the policies are less competitive for the visually impaired and may have trouble internationalizing to markets with a better state of law. This study is one of the first to analyze Mexican websites’ accessibility and the first to consider how private institutions are fundamental for enabling basic human rights for the visually disabled.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Design, Accessibility, Inclusive Design, Public Policy
