Accessibility Issues in Ad-Driven Web Applications
Abdul Haddi Amjad, Muhammad Danish, Bless Jah, Muhammad Ali Gulzar

TL;DR
This study investigates the accessibility challenges posed by third-party ads on websites, revealing widespread violations of WCAG standards and their impact on users with disabilities, and offers guidelines for improvement.
Contribution
First large-scale analysis of ad accessibility issues on 430K websites, identifying prevalent violations and proposing design guidelines for compliant ad integration.
Findings
67% of websites face increased accessibility violations due to ads
Popular ad services often serve non-compliant ads with misleading alt text
94% of websites collect user data through ad interactions, risking privacy for users with disabilities
Abstract
Website accessibility is essential for inclusiveness and regulatory compliance. Although third-party advertisements (ads) are a vital revenue source for free web services, they introduce significant accessibility challenges. Leasing a website\'s space to ad-serving technologies like DoubleClick results in developers losing control over ad content accessibility. Even on highly accessible websites, third-party ads can undermine adherence to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We conduct the first large-scale investigation of 430K website elements, including nearly 100K ad elements, to understand the accessibility of ads on websites. We seek to understand the prevalence of inaccessible ads and their overall impact on the accessibility of websites. Our findings show that 67% of websites experience increased accessibility violations due to ads, with common violations including Focus…
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Taxonomy
TopicsDigital Accessibility for Disabilities
