Accessibility 101 - UK Web Accessibility Fact Sheet 2007

There's a lot of misleading information about accessible website design. Here we present some of the facts about web accessibility in the UK .

Does My Website Have To Be Accessible in 2007?
"The part of the DDA that states websites must be made accessible came into force on 1 October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the Act was published on 27 May 2002." RNIB 2005

You do have a responsibility at some level, whether or not you are the designer or the commissioner of the website, to ensure your website design does not discriminate against disabled visitors to your site.

So what happens if your website design is not accessible?
Unsurprisingly, you leave yourself open to criticism, bad press and and more seriously legal action if your site is not accessible.

"A disabled person can make a claim against you if your website makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult to access information and services. If you have not made reasonable adjustments and cannot show that this failure is justified, then you may be liable under the Act, and may have to pay compensation and be ordered by a court to change your site." RNIB 2005

What level of compliance should your website design meet?
No case has been brought to court in the United Kingdom to date, so there is no case law guidance. In any event, case law can only provide broad guidance - what websites have to do may vary from site to site. What is important, however, is the outcome: the DDA requires that you make what it refers to as “reasonable adjustments”, to your services to ensure that a person with a disability can access that service. This means making changes to websites - which offer 24 hour service, and a variety of features not available via, for example, a telephone service - so that disabled people can use them.

"...as outlined in our “See it Right” website accessibility requirements, we recommend that websites exceed the basic level of compliance that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend in their Website Accessibility Guidelines (WAG) version 1.0 and aim for double AA compliance. If you are a UK government website you should be aiming to achieve double A." RNIB 2005

Who can build you a website design that 'complies with UK Law'?
No website design company is capable of producing a website for you that is “compliant with the law” or “compliant with the DDA" in the UK.

"9.1.1 It is not possible to provide a definitive specification for a fully accessible website which will satisfy the requirements of the DDA. Website commissioners should therefore be sceptical if contracting companies declare that they will create websites that are “DDA-compliant” or “compliant with the law”. Conversely, website commissioners should not require a web designer to design a website that is “DDA-compliant” or “compliant with the law”. Until case law has been established such claims cannot be made or honoured." PAS 78 , 2006

Although there are many website design companies that build (or at least promise to build) quality, W3C compliant websites.

How do you choose a web site design company?
Checks should include:

- a review of previous work - test it free at Accessibility101
- references from previous clients
- a practical knowledge of PAS 78
- a practical knowledge of W3C guidelines and specifications
- an appreciation of the implications of “The Disability Discrimination Code of Practice (Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises)” 2002 edition.
- familiarity with assistive technologies.

Web Accessibility Opinion
Basically, you need to make sure your site is built to W3C standards for good website design. That means valid html and valid css. It means passing Priority 1 W3C WCAG (Google it!) at least. It means well formed website code (i.e. without errors) and simple and correct use of technologies. Actually - this is fairly simple to do for an experienced web designer - do not accept that you need to pay more for accessible web design - it should come as standard, part of good practice web design. You could go one step further and ask "vision impaired" testers to test drive the site. Finally, you need to listen to your web site visitors. If someone contacts you about the inaccessibility of your web site - then fix it!

There's a business case and moral obligation to make your site as accessible as you can. There are over 8 Million people registered as having a disability in the UK, and a lot of them use the net - do you really want to ignore them? Prosecutions have been successful in Australia and the US - it will happen in the UK, just not any time soon - so don't worry too much about prosecution - and don't listen to the snake oil salesman who want your hard earned cash for total website redevelopment!