The issue of website accessibility is a subject of constant consideration and assessment for everyone here at Eurisko Consulting, as well as often being one of keen and passionate debate.
Despite considering ourselves to be experts in the field of web solution development, we continue to have mixed feelings about the issues involved in web site accessibility, and hence its delivery.
I should add that we do not agree with or condone discrimination, of either the negative or positive kind. In our mind an employer being legislatively forced to employ certain percentages of particular groups is as wrong as them not employing them because of their sex, religion, creed or any disability.
So what does the Disability Discrimination Act specifically say about website accessibility? The answer is nothing! In effect the Act only lays out the high level legislative elements.
Despite all the noise about website accessibility and how it is a “legal requirement” (primarily made by companies and organisations with a vested interest in it), Eurisko, in common with the RNIB are not aware of any cases that have been brought against service providers in the UK regarding inaccessible websites. This is despite the core legislation being in place since 1995 – normally more than long enough time for legislation to be tested in the courts!
A very interesting question surrounds that of community sites (Facebook, youtube, bebo etc) that rely heavily upon user generated content. Here the use of both age and regional related slang is widespread, as is the inclusion of images without ‘alt’ tags and videos without a text equivalent. Each of these breeches one or more of the accessibility ‘rules’ (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: 14.1 Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content; Checkpoint 1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element).
As most businesses would not (and should not) discriminate against clients or potential clients, we all need to consider web site accessibility. How and what you do to address it will be dependent upon a number of things including:
- Your type of business
- Your user/client profile
- Your financial position
At the time of writing, there is no definitive answer as to how web site accessibility has to be addressed. This is in part to do with the fact that different companies, in different sectors and of different size, apparently, have different obligations to the law, based in part on whose interpretation you decide (or are advised) to listen to.
Basic accessibility measures, such as resizable text, good link identification, image ‘alt tags’ and good copy writing should have little or no budgetary impact if specified as a requirement at the time of designing and building a site. ‘Adding’ accessibility to an existing site or after the build phase has started will potentially be significantly more expensive.
The last words on this we think comes from Bert Massie CBE, the Chairman of the Disability Rights Commission. In his forward to the Code of Practice, Rights of Access document he says “. . . there is undoubtedly some ambiguity and there are some areas which will require testing in the courts. . .”.