Methodology for Identifying and Solving Accessibility Related Issues in Web Content Management System Environments
Juan Miguel López, Afra Pascual, Cristina Menduiña, Toni Granollers · 2012 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A) · doi:10.1145/2207016.2207043
Summary
This paper presents a nine-step iterative methodology for identifying and resolving accessibility issues in web content management system (CMS) environments. The authors address the growing problem that while CMSs like OpenCMS and Typo3 enable non-technical users to manage web content, the systems themselves may not provide adequate support for producing accessible output — and unskilled users may inadvertently make accessible sites inaccessible. The methodology combines evaluation against both ATAG (Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines) for the CMS itself and WCAG for the content it produces. The nine steps are: (1) select and configure the CMS with accessibility features enabled; (2) define a representative sample of web pages covering all HTML elements the CMS will manage; (3) evaluate the CMS against ATAG; (4) develop the sample pages using default CMS configuration; (5) evaluate those pages against WCAG using at least two automated tools; (6) analyse the causes of detected errors by examining the CMS workflow; (7) identify solutions for each error; (8) apply solutions by reconfiguring or extending the CMS; and (9) confirm the CMS can now manage accessible pages. The methodology was validated through a case study using OpenCMS 7.5.1 and Typo3 4.5.2, creating 10 representative web pages for a Medical School website.
Key findings
The ATAG evaluation revealed that default configurations of both CMSs had significant accessibility shortcomings: OpenCMS passed only 25% of Level A checkpoints and 42.86% of Level AA, while Typo3 passed 37.5% and 42.86% respectively. Both CMSs shared common ATAG failures: they did not preserve all accessibility information during authoring; did not generate valid markup automatically; lacked features promoting accessible content production; and did not allow editing all element properties in an accessible fashion. The root cause analysis (step 6) identified four distinct sources of accessibility errors: templates, the HTML editor (FCKEditor/RTE), user behaviour, and the CMS itself. For example, the HTML editor introduced resize text failures (SC 1.4.4) by using italics tags instead of emphasis; templates lacked language declarations and proper link purpose attributes; the CMS did not associate form labels with controls; and Typo3's Spamshield extension injected invisible form inputs that violated SC 1.3.1. After applying the methodology's solutions (template fixes, editor configuration, plugin additions like Alkacon OAMP HTMLCleaner), ATAG compliance improved — notably checkpoints 2.1, 2.2, and 7.3 were now fulfilled in both CMSs. All 10 sample pages achieved accessibility compliance after one iteration.
Relevance
This research is directly relevant to any organisation using a CMS to manage web content — which today includes the vast majority of websites. The key insight is that CMS accessibility is not just about choosing the right system; it requires systematic configuration, template modification, and HTML editor customisation. The four-source error model (template, HTML editor, CMS, user) provides a practical diagnostic framework for accessibility professionals troubleshooting CMS-generated content. The finding that both CMSs shared similar accessibility failures suggests these are systemic CMS architecture issues rather than product-specific bugs. For organisations, the practical takeaways include: always configure the CMS with accessibility features enabled from the start; customise templates to include language declarations, proper heading hierarchies, and link title attributes; configure or replace the HTML editor to prevent it from generating inaccessible markup (such as using italic tags instead of semantic emphasis); and provide users with accessibility training since some errors (page titles, alt text, table headers) are inherently user responsibilities that no CMS configuration can fully automate.
Tags: content management systems · WCAG compliance · ATAG · web accessibility · evaluation methods · authoring tools · CMS accessibility
Standards referenced: WCAG 2.0 · WCAG 1.0 · ATAG 1.0