From Legal Frameworks to Practice: Assessing Implementation of Web Accessibility Laws and Websites in Israel and New Zealand – Research Dataset
Description
This repository supports the study From Legal Frameworks to Practice: Assessing Implementation of Web Accessibility Laws and Websites in Israel and New Zealand. The study adopts an integrated comparative mixed-methods design to examine web accessibility from both technical and institutional perspectives. It investigates how different national approaches to accessibility governance are reflected in website accessibility implementation. The research addresses two principal questions concerning (1) the technical characteristics of web accessibility implementation and (2) the institutional characteristics of national accessibility frameworks. Two hypotheses guided the study: first, that key technical accessibility dimensions reflect website accessibility implementation, and second, that stronger legal frameworks demonstrate stronger institutional characteristics for promoting digital accessibility. Website accessibility was evaluated using a combined methodology of automated testing and expert manual assessment based on WCAG 2.0 Level AA and the Accessibility Barrier Score (ABS) framework. The legal assessment was conducted independently by two reviewers using a structured evaluation framework covering predefined legislative dimensions. Standardized coding procedures, predefined evaluation criteria, and inter-rater reliability measures were applied to improve consistency and transparency throughout the evaluation process. The findings should be interpreted as comparative and explanatory rather than correlational or causal. The study does not test statistical relationships between legal frameworks and website accessibility outcomes. Instead, it provides an integrated comparative interpretation of how technical implementation and institutional governance coexist across different regulatory environments. The repository is intended to promote transparency, reproducibility, methodological reuse, and future comparative research in digital accessibility, accessibility governance, information systems, and public policy.
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Steps to reproduce
The data were collected using a comparative mixed-methods research design integrating website accessibility evaluation with a comparative legal assessment. Website accessibility data were obtained through a combination of automated accessibility testing and expert manual evaluation based on WCAG 2.0 Level AA and the Accessibility Barrier Score (ABS) methodology. Twenty government and non-profit websites (10 from Israel and 10 from New Zealand) were evaluated between 2014 and 2015. The legal assessment was conducted in 2024 through a structured comparative analysis of the principal accessibility laws, regulations, standards, and policy documents in Israel and New Zealand. Two independent reviewers evaluated the legal frameworks using six predefined dimensions: Subject Matter, Definitions, Clarity, Exemptions, Penalties, and Reporting. The datasets were cleaned, standardized, validated, and documented to ensure transparency and reproducibility.
Institutions
- Bar-Ilan UniversityTel Aviv, Ramat Gan