Evaluation of Academic Library Website in Compliance with Wcag Guidelines: Pour Principle Vs. Cudun Approach

Abstract

WCAG 2.2 guidelines cater to the development, management and evaluation of websites in common. Academic library websites have unique support and services that need exclusive evaluation concepts and parameters to cater for the changes in line with technological development.  Therefore, this paper attempts to fulfil the gap between website evaluations in common in adherence to WCAG 2.2 guidelines Vs. Academic library website framework (CUDUN approach). This caters to comprehending and augmenting the academic library websites to prioritise the concepts and sub-concepts to enhance the user support with social inclusivity, competence and recent technologies. Five select universities were evaluated on the sub-concept level to optimise the privacy, operability, user support and technological development in Content, Usability & accessibility, Design & functionality, User engagement & quick links and Networking & performance (CUDUN). The results found that POUR concepts, understandable, secured the highest mean of (1.47) of rank first, with the CUDUN approach of design and functionality, with a maximum score of availability of 2 (Yes) of parameters like structure and navigation in all select 5 universities. Comparatively less importance was given to the other 3 POUR concepts ranked as 19^th that aligned with the web environment. Based on universities, TNOU ranked first with 1.32 as the mean that covers POUR and CUDUN concepts equally to satisfy the major parameters of the library website, followed by PU with a minimal difference of 0.01 mean value from 1.31. The MTWU and TNFU ranked higher than MKU may be because the library website is incorporated with the university's main portal of the host institution, sharing information without a dedicated website to cater for the library user needs. MKU has a standalone website with vast information provided for the library users with accessibility compliance and performance efficiency, but may be ranked lower due to the lack of information to web standards. This paper highlighted that institutional integration or a standalone portal of the library should be centralised for uninterrupted web governance that meets the requirements and challenges of user needs. Through the standardised CUDUN framework, library websites can achieve socially inclusive, exclusive, sustainable and high-quality web services.