Accessibility Adherence in Swedish Municipal Websites : Evolution and continuity of WCAG Guideline adherence on Swedish Municipal Websites

Sammanfattning

Background. Web accessibility ensures equitable digital access for users with disabilities, as mandated by WCAG 2.2 and Swedish law (SFS 2018:1937) [13]. Smaller municipalities often struggle with compliance, largely due to limited resources and technical expertise, with prior studies noting lower adherence compared to larger entities [4]. This study addresses a research gap by examining accessibility in Sweden’s ten smallest municipalities by population. Objectives. This study aims to:1. Assess the level of WCAG 2.2 AA compliance among the selected municipalities, 2. Compare these results with each municipality’s published accessibility statement, 3. Evaluate the reliability and overlap of four automated accessibility tools, and 4. Identify contributions of manual evaluation in uncovering issues missed by automated tools. Methods. A multiple-case study design was employed, evaluating each municipal website with four automated tools (WAVE, AChecker, SortSite, Lighthouse) and manual expert testing. Accessibility statements were analyzed against W3C and DIGG guidelines [20]. Results. None of the municipalities fully complied with WCAG 2.2 AA, though many achieved high success rates on individual criteria (e.g., 96.8% A-level, Section 4.3.2). Automated tools showed limited overlap in detecting failures, with SortSite identifying 29 unique issues (Section4.3.2). Accessibility statements were sparse, often failing to reflect evaluation findings (Section4.3.1). Conclusions. Although half the municipalities fail to meet WCAG 2.2 AA requirements under stricter evaluation criteria, they demonstrate significant progress toward accessibility goals. Sparse documentation, infrequent updates, and overreliance on automated tools highlight organizational shortcomings, reinforcing the need for manual evaluation and external audits. (Section 5.1.5).