Making websites accessible for all

Although the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) first became law in October 1995, how many people know exactly what is included or exluded?.  It affects all walks of life and aims to ensure we deal with everyone who may need additional support or assistance fairly. For 10 years it has been against the law to discriminate in employment and the provision of goods and services. Now accessibility on websites is being closely monitored.

The DDA requirements have been staged to avoid adding a significant cost overhead to any organisation trying to meet them. Human nature has meant that we all leave things to the last minute – and then complain and panic that we had no warning.

The part of the DDA that requiring websites to be accessible came into force in October 1999 – with virtually no exceptions. 

But how does this affect you?

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) does not just set down conditions for companies employing people with disabilities or selling to them.  It covers everyone and even the exceptions for small businesses were removed in October 2004. There are three key reasons why you should consider whether, and how, you meet the needs of this audience.

1          Legal requirement

The DDA affects everyone.  Even if you just provide free information through your website or sell products or services that you consider inappropriate for someone who is blind or partially sighted. Even if you don’t employ someone with a disability or consider the job unsuitable. None of these are a valid excuse.

A disabled person may make a claim against you if your website makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult to access information or services. If you have not made a reasonable attempt to make it accessible and cannot show how that failure may be justified – you could be required by a court to pay compensation …. and make the changes anyway.

2          Business case

Why exclude any potential market or customer?  Taking simple design rules on board when building, changing or updating your website can attract more business and, just as important, good referrals to their friends and family. When talking to someone on the phone, corresponding through letters or email, or simply discussing business in on-line groups ... how do you know the person at the other end does not have a sight disability?

Some thought provoking statistics;

• 56 million - Population of the UK   

• 8.5 million - People with some form of disability in UK

• 2 million - People with sight disabilities in UK  

• £50 billion - Personal spending power of disabled people in UK  

And the figures are going to increase as we look towards the elderly community making up 40% of the population in the near future, with a significant spending power.  Are you getting your share?

3          Employee case

Just because people may have a disability be it mobility, looks, sight, doesn’t  mean they become stupid. Most people with disabilities suffer some sort of accident or health deterioration later in life. Now, with 15% of the population having a disability of one sort or another, the chances on your company excluding “just the right person” if you don’t meet someone’s access needs, is very, very high.

Making everything you do DDA compliant and accessable thus adopting the rules as your “best practice”  will ensure your organisation is better placed to grab your ideal employee when they walk through the door.

If you don’t, they just won’t be able to come to work or perform effectively.

• 97% of large organisations claim to be aware that web accessibility is an important issue

• 68% claim to take accessibility into account when designing websites. Yet,

• 81% of the websites tested by City University lacked evidence of any attempt to make their content accessible. (Disability Rights Commission)

If information is worth putting on the web, it’s worth making sure everyone can get to it.

How far must I go?

Currently there are a simple set of standards to identify accessible websites. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sets three “priorities” for the design of websites and refers to them as A, AA and AAA compliant. You should aim for AA as the norm but strive to AAA if at all possible.

Priority 1(A compliant): 

A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents.

Priority 2(AA compliant):           

A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents.

Priority 3(AAA compliant):        

A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents.

The Disability Rights Commission has recently asked the BSI to prepare a set of guidelines for website design.  PAS 78: ‘Guide to good practice in designing accessible websites’ (Publicly Available Specification) was published last year providing guidance and advice on ‘best practice’ for web site design – it is not a legal standard but seeks to clarify what can be done.

Simple do's and don'ts

Here are a few simple pointers to take into consideration when looking at the DDA compliance issues around your website;

Do:

• Use logical naming for links, i.e. if the link is to a products section, call the link "products", and not "click here for products".

• Use contrasting colour schemes, those with visual impairments may use high contrast settings and so may struggle with light text on a white background.

• Always provide alternative text for images, the text should describe the image. If the image is simply a spacer or a placeholder leave the alt tags blank and the screen reading software will ignore it.

• Do something to ensure that your website is DDA compliant and do it quickly. .

Do Not:

• Rely on scripting to navigate your website; a compliant site should be useable without any scripting capabilities.

• Where possible try to avoid using tables for layout purposes, if using tables try to provide headings and summary information.

• Prevent access for approximately 8.3million (15%) of the UK who are registered disabled.

• Commission a new website or plan a 'revamp' of your existing site without ensuring that your new design incorporates the right elements to make it DDA compliant.

• For help and advice on how to comply with the DDA, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Taken from the Free-rein website