Web accessibility audit of 810 university official sites across Japan reveals distinct issues between national, public, and private institutions
We conducted an automated web accessibility diagnosis survey of the official website homepages across 812 universities nationwide—national, public, and private institutions. The survey used the web accessibility automated diagnosis tool "Lente Scan."
As a result, accessibility issues were detected on 803 schools' (99.1%) homepages out of the 810 schools surveyed—within the scope of what automated diagnostics can identify. The median number of issues detected per page was 38.5, with the highest count at one university reaching 1,351.
The proportion of universities where issues were detected is 97.6% for national universities, 98.0% for public universities, and 99.5% for private universities, with minimal differences by category. However, when examining the detection rate for each success criterion by university category, we found that the types of prominent issues differ depending on the category.
Survey Results Summary
- National universities frequently fail to specify alternative text (alt attributes) for images. Success Criterion 1.1.1 "Non-text Content" addresses whether alternative text is provided to convey equivalent content for non-text information such as images. Universities where issues were detected under this criterion showed the following rates: 51.8% of national universities, 23.5% of public universities, and 33.2% of private universities. The number of images on the homepage is not particularly high at national universities, nor is there a significant difference in the proportion of unspecified images among universities that have them. What is notably high at national universities is not "the percentage of unspecified images at individual universities," but rather "the number of universities where unspecified images occur."
- Private universities frequently encounter issues where links and UI elements fail to convey their purpose to assistive technologies. WCAG 2.4.4 "Link Purpose" is a success criterion that addresses whether the destination or purpose of a link can be identified from the link text or related context. Among universities surveyed, 78.5% of private institutions had links without accessible names (compared to 67.1% of national universities and 62.7% of public universities). Visually hidden elements that still receive keyboard focus were detected in 22.0% of private universities—more than double the 10.6% at national universities and 10.8% at public universities. This implementation issue is common in dynamic UI components such as carousels (auto-rotating slides) and mega menus.
- The most common issue across all categories is insufficient contrast. Among individual detection items, the most frequent was insufficient contrast between text and background, detected in 619 out of 810 schools (76.4%) at a total of 10,187 locations. The difference across categories is small: 71.8% for national, 70.6% for public, and 78.0% for private institutions. Note that when backgrounds are images or gradients, automated diagnostics cannot determine the actual background color, so the 76.4% figure is limited to instances that could be assessed by automated diagnostics.
Limitations of This Survey
Automated diagnosis can identify only about 30-40% of WCAG success criteria. The figures in this survey are limited to that scope and do not constitute a comprehensive accessibility evaluation of individual university websites. Only aggregated results are published; individual university diagnosis results are not disclosed. For remaining areas and items that cannot be determined by automated diagnosis alone, manual review is necessary.
Survey Methodology
- Target: Official top pages (one page only) of 812 schools total—85 national, 102 public, and 625 private institutions—listed in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's directory of related organization links. Two schools were excluded because their target sites did not accept automated access, resulting in 810 schools included in the analysis.
- Date conducted: September 18–19, 2026
- Evaluation standard: WCAG 2.2 Level AA
- Diagnostic engine: axe-core 4.11.4, Lente Detect 1.6.5 (evaluated at both desktop equivalent 1280px and mobile equivalent 320px widths)
Survey report
Detailed survey results, including aggregation by compliance criteria and detected issues, as well as survey conditions, are published in the report below.
https://www.liberogic.jp/survey/university/2026-09-19/report-public.html
"Lente Scan," the tool used in this survey, is a web accessibility diagnostic tool that automatically assesses accessibility simply by entering a URL. Registration-free and free to use, it evaluates your website using the same diagnostic engine and criteria as this survey (the free version performs diagnostics at desktop width only; diagnostics including mobile width are available with the Pro plan).
https://lente-scan.liberogic.jp/
Areas requiring human review are handled through expert manual diagnostics
For areas beyond the scope of automated diagnostics, we provide web accessibility manual diagnostic services with a team centered on IAAP-certified Web Accessibility Specialists (WAS). Diagnostics use our proprietary workspace "Lente Audit," enabling unified handling from sharing findings through remediation coordination to report issuance.
