An accessible web is good for all

Organisations with web sites that are inaccessible to people with disabilities risk being sued under the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. In a recent survey of 1,000 web sites carried out by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), over 80 percent failed basic accessibility tests - so it looks like most companies are in legal peril.

Remarkably, not a single site achieved the highest level of compliance with guidelines issued by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The law is widely misunderstood. The act does not mention web sites specifically, although they are mentioned in the codes of practice issued by the DRC. In essence, the law says that you may not discriminate against disabled people by refusing to provide them with services that are otherwise generally available. This includes a duty to make reasonable adjustments to the way services are provided.

The guidelines are peppered with the word "reasonable", which means there is no quick and easy way to determine whether or not a web site is operating legally. All you can say with certainty is that site designers who are unaware of the WAI guidelines and make no attempt to conform are vulnerable, at least in the event that a disgruntled disabled person decides to sue.

One reason for poor compliance with the WAI guidelines is that they are almost too difficult for mortals to follow. Leading web-design tools, such as Microsoft's FrontPage 2003 and Macromedia's Dreamweaver, come with accessibility-checking tools, but running these against the supplied WAI samples and templates can come up with a few errors and hundreds of warnings and points to check.

Here is another curious thing: Dreamweaver has several categories of sample page designs, only one of which is designated "accessible". The implication is that accessibility is a specialist requirement. Vendors deserve credit for including accessibility tools, but making good use of them is not easy.

A better idea is to forget the tools and instead have designers read and understand the WAI guidelines themselves. It turns out that most of the guidelines chime nicely with the things that web designers should do anyway. After all, requirements for accessibility, such as clear language and easy navigation, are simple common sense.

It is time to stop talking about accessibility as if it were a niche issue of relevance only to a minority, and instead to talk simply of good design and bad design.

One of the tests carried out by the DRC was to have users carry out everyday web-based tasks, such as making a purchase or finding a piece of information, and to measure the success rate and the time taken. The results showed that people without disabilities find it easier to use sites that are designed to be accessible to people with disabilities. Better design means better results, which is reason enough for any organisation to wake up to the demands of accessibility.