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Martin Dady
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Accessibility
Overview
There are over 9.8 million people in the UK who have a disability and this equates to about one in seven of the population. Disability is a broad term that encompasses people of all ages with many types of impairment which can range from dyslexia to depression.
People with disabilities can often have problems when using the internet. Apart from visual impairment, people may have hearing and movement disabilities which may further restrict their use of the internet.
There are, however, a number of “assistive technologies” which can help disabled internet users. For example, people with visual impairments may benefit from a text only browser like Lynx which will literally display only the text of a web page or screen reading software like IBM’s Home Page Reader will “speak out” the text that appears on the screen. It is also possible for people with motor disabilities to navigate around a screen using keys strokes.
Of course, these technologies are only any use if a web page has been constructed correctly with valid HTML markup as recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Sadly, many are not. A good deal of web pages are generated automatically by WYSIWYG software that emphasises visual design but can create poor HTML markup. In addition, many web design companies are either not aware of the accessibility issue or have made little effort to incorporate accessibility into their designs.
The W3C acknowledged these issues and released the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines back in 1999.
These guidelines... “explain how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities. The guidelines are intended for all web content developers (page authors and site designers) and for developers of authoring tools. The primary goal of these guidelines is to promote accessibility. However, following them will also make web content more available to all users, whatever they are using (e.g., desktop browser, voice browser, mobile phone, automobile-based personal computer, etc.) or constraints they may be operating under (e.g., noisy surroundings, under- or over-illuminated rooms, in a hands-free environment, etc.). Following these guidelines will also help people find information on the web more quickly. These guidelines do not discourage content developers from using images, video, etc., but rather explain how to make multimedia content more accessible to a wide audience.” *
A survey by the Disability Rights Commission discovered that 81% of websites failed to satisfy the most basic Web Accessibility Initiative.
“Just as people differ in the language, characters and cultures to which they are used, so they differ in terms of their capacities, for example, in vision, hearing, motor or cognition. The universality which we expect of the Web includes making sure that, as much as we can, we make the Web a place which people can use irrespective of disabilities.”
Sir Tim Berners-Lee,
Director of W3C and inventor of the World Wide Web
Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
Since 1999, those providing online services have been obliged by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) to make the site reasonably accessible to disabled people. Section 19 states that it is... “unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate against a disabled person 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.” This includes websites.
Accessibility Audit
Webdivine offers Accessibility Audits that are designed to confirm whether your site is accessible or not and what work is needed to make it compliant.
Currently, the W3C recommends 3 levels of accessibility compliance:
Priority 1
A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents.
Priority 2
A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing web documents.
Priority 3
A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents.
If you can pass Priority 2 and Priority 3 checkpoints you will have removed ‘significant barriers to accessible web documents’ guidelines.*
Webdivine will manually audit your website page by page checking it against the technical details contained in the W3C’s guidelines. We will also test your site in various user agents (including web browsers and speech software) and test the code for valid markup.
After this, we will compile a detailed report with our findings and recommendations.
The cost of the audit will depend on the number of pages to be assessed and whether the site is being audited against Priority 1, 2 or 3 guidelines.
Please call for more information and pricing on 0121 · 451 · 2508.
* Copyright © 1994-2002 World Wide Web Consortium, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All Rights Reserved. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/