Under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), websites should be accessible to blind and disabled users. In particular, part III of the DDA refers to the provision of goods, facilities and services and specifically mentions websites. In a nutshell, it is illegal to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service that is provides to members of the public. The DDA came info force in 1999.
What does this mean for you?
Simply, your website should be accessible to blind and disabled users. In practice, this means structuring your website and its design and underlying code in such a way that makes it easy for disabled users to use and read your site. Blind and partially sighted users using screen readers should also be able to use your site.
Why is accessibility important?
For many disabled people, the Internet is a lifeline, allowing them to shop, learn or interact with other internet users. Inaccessible websites are a barrier to them and can hinder their independence.
Web accessibility is concerned with making your site available to all users. An accessible site may not look different to your existing site, but taking steps to make your site accessible will ensure that your company is open to all, is more readable by search engines and is staying within legislation.
Can I be sued?
Yes. The Disability Rights Commission recently launched an investigation into 1000 sites, and found that 80% had serious accessibility problems which meant that disabled users could not use them. Warnings were issued to the sites in question and there is the threat of unlimited compensation payments for firms not complying.
How do I comply?
It is widely assumed that the compliance will be based on compliance with W3C Accessibility Guidelines. The W3C is the “governing body” for the internet and publishes many sets of criteria for websites, from accessibility guidelines to programming standards.
Firstly, it is essential to identify areas of your website that may be causing problems. The best way to do this is to use our Accessibility Reporting service, which matches your site against the W3C Accessibility Guidelines.
There are three levels of compliance – Priority 1, 2 and 3. Priority 1 compliance is absolutely mandatory and all websites should comply with this as a matter of course. Priority 2 is the EU recommended level of compliance, with Priority 3 a “gold standard”.
To find out whether your website is compliant with these Priorities, you should use our Accessibility Reporting Service.
Accessibility Testing
Our Accessibility Test service identifies problems and errors on your site that are a barrier to disabled users. Using our practical experience and a series of tests run across all pages on your site, we provide a report outlining accessibility problems and an overall Pass or Fail for each W3C Priority level.
Contact us to find our more about Accessiblity Testing.
Accessibility Audit
Our website accessibility audit provides a more detailed report and more importantly, it also contains details of how to fix the problems. If any problems are identified then a quotation for work that needs to be carried out will be supplied.
If your site has failed, the Accessibility Audit will enable you to make an informed decision about how to make your site compliant with the W3C Checkpoints and the DDA.
Contact us to find our more about Accessiblity Auditing.