AWAE: A Multi-Stakeholder Reporting Tool for Automated Web Accessibility Evaluation

Abstract

Automated web accessibility evaluation tools play a central role in supporting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance, yet established platforms largely deliver violation reports in a uniform format that underserves diverse stakeholders, including non-technical professionals such as designers, auditors, and end-users. The resulting comprehension gap inflates remediation effort, slows audit preparation, and limits stakeholders’ ability to act on accessibility findings. This paper presents AWAE, a multi-stakeholder reporting tool for automated web accessibility evaluation that wraps the open-source axe-core engine in a data-transformation layer to produce four structurally distinct, audience-specific report views: Developer, Auditor, Designer, and End-User. AWAE evaluates pages against WCAG 2.2 success criteria. Empirical evaluation of the framework demonstrates strong quantitative consensus regarding accuracy, detail, and trust, while identifying critical operational insights, such as the need for in-viewport inspection features and prescriptive, code-level remediation paths. The findings indicate that tailored, multi-stakeholder reporting yields clear usability advantages and provides targeted benefits across operational roles.