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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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