Scrapbook 5.2 - Russian translationThe Case For Web Accessibility
There are many reasons why it is important to consider, not only how your web site resources operate, but also how easily they can be accessed by those with a disability.
The Legal Case
Firstly there is the legal responsibility embodied in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (‘the Act’) that places a responsibility upon providers to ensure that disabled individuals have effective access to services and information.
The Act affects every service provider in the UK whether in the private, public or voluntary sectors and covers “access to and use of information only services”.
For example, under the provisions section 19 of the Act, it is unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate against a disabled person:
(a) in refusing to provide, or deliberately not providing, to the disabled person any service which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to members of the public;
Section 19(3) goes on to provide examples of the services. Sub-section (b) applies to “access to and use of means of communications” and sub-section (c) applies to “access to and use of information services”.
Both of these sub-sections clearly apply to the design and functioning of a web site on the Internet.
Statutory codes of practice are issued by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) an independent body empowered by the Government to help secure civil rights for disabled people.
The DRC can also fund representation for individuals, where it believes discrimination has occurred and, under the provisions of the Disability Rights Commission Act 1999, it has the power to instigate formal investigations into sectors where it believes that discrimination is taking place.
On 27th March 2003, the DRC began a formal investigation into the accessibility levels offered by 1000 web sites. Whilst the final report from this investigation has yet to be released, it is expected to confirm that the vast majority of web sites fail to provide even the most minimal accessibility provision.
The Technical Issues
For a start, the Act does not include any hard and fast rules for acceptable levels of web accessibility.
Not surprisingly, there are web markup standards that can go a long way to ensuring that sites are developed to serve the largest possible audience using the broadest range of hardware and software platforms, and with the needs of disabled users taken into consideration. These, internationally accepted, standards are produced, and maintained, by the W3C Consortium who also provide validation tools to assist designers in creating markup compliant web sites.
Validating sites against the W3C standards can go a long way towards achieving minimal accessibility levels.
However, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has also compiled a set of guidelines regarding web accessibility levels. Known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)1.0, they have been produced under the auspices of the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and compliance with them is an obvious demonstration that web accessibility is being taken seriously.
The WCAG guidelines are divided into three Priorities, or Levels:
- Priority 1 (Level A): This is considered mandatory for all web sites.
- Priority 2 (Level AA): Web sites should actively work towards this level, as part of an ongoing accessibility policy.
- Priority 3 (Level AAA): Some web sites may consider compliance with this level in order to maximise site accessibility.
Service providers should, therefore, ensure that their sites comply with Priority 1 (Level A) and seriously consider working towards Priority 2 (Level AA) and possibly even Priority 3 (Level AAA).
Whilst there are some parsing engines that can assess the general accessibility levels of a given web page (e.g. Watchtower’s “Bobby” and the Outreach Project “Cynthia Says”), they can, at best, only give an accessibility estimate that should then be verified by an independent expert.
Remember – the duty is a continuing one as ongoing developments, especially in the field of IT adaptive technology, may improve potential web accessibility. Therefore it may be advisable to adopt a site accessibility policy and to review both this, and the site’s accessibility levels, on a regular basis.
The Business Case
There are approximately 10.5 million people with disabilities in the UK at present, who have a cumulative disposable income of over £50 billion. How many organisations would knowingly disregard such a considerable sector of their potential customer base?
But, most significantly, the effective implementation of good practice in the design of an IT resource or website benefits everyone – whether they have special requirements of access or not. This is because the overall design is concerned with the best implementation of a wide range of elements including colour, graphics, text, multi-media, frames, and dynamic elements. It addresses the many inconsistencies that can arise in the overall experience of each user.
When such a holistic approach is applied, the result is a resource that is easy to use for all – regardless of what technology, specialist or otherwise, is being used to access it.
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