This article was featured in December's issue of
.net Magazine (www.netmag.co.uk)
Is your Web site breaking the law? Why should you make it
accessible? What changes do you need to make? .net Magazine's Dan
Oliver demystifies the confusing world of Web site accessibility
Earlier this year a number of magazines ran an alarmist story
claiming that the DRC (Disability Rights Commission) was gathering
evidence against hundreds of Web sites with a view to taking legal
action under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). The story
claimed that those sites that provided a service - and weren't
accessible to the disabled - were going to be taken to court and
hung out to dry.
Veil of confusion
If it was true, this news would have been unprecedented - but
it wasn't. It was simply another veil of confusion that has
surrounded the DDA and Web site accessibility in the UK since the
start of the new millennium. "There's no doubt that people
are confused," says Marty Carroll, director of usability
practice at The Usability Company. "One of the reasons is
there are so many disparate sources of information and scare
mongering going on. We had a case a few weeks ago where a client
said the design agency told them they had to adhere to certain
guidelines otherwise they'd be prosecuted by the DRC. What the DRC
is actually going to do is educate the market about accessibility
with some real world examples of where big sites are falling
down."
There's a mood among some designers that they're being hunted
down by the likes of the DRC and the RNIB (Royal National
Institute of the Blind) - the two main groups that will support
disabled people that want to make a case against a site. This is,
in fact, far from the truth. "The DRC is currently
undertaking a formal investigation into Web accessibility,"
says Julie Howell, digital policy development officer at the RNIB.
"Some press said this would be the DRC looking at a 1,000 Web
sites and that those found non-compliant would be sued - absolute
bunk! That was never the case. The journalist that wrote that
grossly misjudged the facts."
The reality is that the DRC is currently investigating 1,000
sites in a number of sectors and actually anonymising them, with a
view to publishing the findings at the end of the year. The
motivation behind the report is simple - to get site owners to
willingly upgrade their pages so they adhere to the World Wide Web
Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT.
Many people, even if they are aware of accessibility law,
believe they have until 2004 to ensure their sites comply to the
WCAG guidelines, but this is another myth propagated by
misinformed reports. "The part of the DDA that applies to
services being accessible came into force in October 1999 -
there's nothing new about this at all," Howell tells .net.
"What I've read in some press is that the date is 2004 when
sites must comply - that's just wrong, it's wrong. One person
wrote it and everyone else copied it. It's false, it's inaccurate.
Sites should be complying now."
Not all Web sites must comply with the guidelines, though. If
you're a business, non-profit organisation or Government
department offering a 'service' to the 'public' then you are
likely to be liable under the DDA. "If you are running a
hobby site, for your local club for example, or a personal Web
site this is less likely to be considered a 'service' as defined
under the terms of the Act," says Howell.
In actuality Web sites could have been prosecuted under the DDA
as far back as October 1999 - but it was such a grey area that
this would have been very unlikely. It wasn't until February 2002,
when the DRC published a Code of Practice to accompany the Act,
that Web sites were specifically mentioned (the DRC Code of
Practice used an airline ticketing Web site as an example of a
'service'). However, because the DDA is based on case law, it's
the responsibility of the disable individual to make a case and to
date only two cases have been pursued - both were settled out of
court. Without case law, it's not possible to provide a definitive
answer for what constitutes a service on the Web, but it's now far
easier to take an educated guess.
Other confusion has centred on what site owners must actually
do to their sites to make them compliant. The World Wide Web
Consortium's guidelines are currently your best bet and ensuring
that you meet the Priority 1 specs should count as reasonable
adjustment. "The term you'll hear a lot of is reasonable
adjustment," says Carroll. "Site owners are required to
make reasonable adjustment to their sites to ensure accessibility
- the problem is what is reasonable adjustment? I think what
you're probably going to see is one or two high-profile
organisations being prosecuted. Afterwards you'll see everyone
running for cover. The idea of the DRC report is to give everyone
a wake up call."
Different disabilities
So what kind of disabilities should you
have in mind when designing your site? The DDA doesn't just cover
accessibility issues for those people with visual impairments, it
covers all disabilities, including cognitive, hearing and motor
(arm) disabilities. This has thrown up a number of problems
because designing a site for each group requires a very different
approach.
Sites for the visually impaired, for instance, need to be
narrow and deep - having limited information on each page and lots
of layers. A site for the cognitively disabled needs to have as
much information as possible on one page so information isn't
forgotten. Visually impaired visitors use software called screen
readers to view sites and the emphasis should always clearly
describe everything with text. On the other hand, a graphical
approach provides a richer experience for people with cognitive
disabilities.
"Priority 1, for us, contains some things we think are
important, and some we see as less important," explains
Howell. "We try to deal with real accessibility. This means
looking at the WAI guidelines as a whole and applying them to your
site. I think people that are visually impaired are probably the
group most effected by poor Web design. Designing for cognitive
disabilities falls more into the usability camp, with issues such
as plain English and consistent navigation."
Despite the different design considerations for separate
disabilities, the RNIB is discouraging people to go down a
multi-modal route. This is a view supported by Macromedia's senior
product manager for education and government, Bob Regan.
"It's better to stick to one version of a site because when
you create two versions, the one for people with disabilities is
never maintained as well, updated as well or funded as well,"
says Regan. "It becomes what I like to call the accessibility
ghetto."
Some people are viewing the new guidelines as a restriction, as
another barrier they must negotiate to get their site on the Net,
but this is short-sighted (no pun intended) and it's a view that
isn't just morally unsound, it's bad business, too. "I think
site owners have brushed the accessibility issue under the carpet
in the hope it'll just go away," concludes Carroll.
"They have other priorities - one company we spoke to said
'accessibility is fine but we have more important things to do'.
Designers think the idea of making an accessible site is scary but
when you explain that it can be as simple as providing information
on links and images, they begin to see that it's not difficult at
all."
There are currently 8.6 million people in the UK with
disabilities that are not being catered for by online 'service
providers'. The organisations that could take legal action against
sites are, in reality, far more interested in helping designers
and site owners do the right thing. "If people ignore
accessibility they're turning their back on potential customers,
they're contributing to a world that isn't very nice to live in
and they're leaving themselves open to prosecution," says
Howell. "If it's a pain in the arse to implement change we
want to know why? We will gladly work with the DRC when they
produce their guidelines at the end of the year to produce tools
that ease the burden for Web designers. Taking legal action is the
last thing we want."
Macromedia's Bob Regan is also adamant that it shouldn't just
be a financial decision to make your site comply with
accessibility guidelines. "If you think about how hard it is
for a blind person to get on a bus, get to the bank, have people
read for them - they're constantly relying on other people,"
says Regan. "For all the fear that drives this, there should
be some comfort in knowing that it makes a huge difference to
millions of people."
Source: Article by Dan Oliver of .net Magazine. Visit the.net
Magazine website by clicking through the following link www.netmag.co.uk.
For more information on accessibility please read the four part
series on accessibility in the November 2002 -February 2003
editions of USEworthy which you can find by clicking through the
following link to the USEworthy archive section of this website
.
You may also wish to visit the following websites:
- RNIB www.rnib.org.uk. The Usability Company in collaboration
with RNIB offer an alternative route to acquiring RNIB's See It
Right Accessibility logo which is the only independent assessment
of website accessibility.
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