The importance of having an accessible website

by Cam Nicholl

Latest research from Shaw Trust suggests that almost 8 million people with health conditions are not able to surf the web effectively due to lack of accessible websites.

As we embark on another decade most of us take surfing the web for granted. But for the nearly eight million people in the UK who have health conditions such as blindness or visual impairment, colour blindness, hearing impairment, dyslexia or mobility impairment, this simple everyday task can be an extremely frustrating experience.

The reason behind this exasperation is almost certainly the fact that many websites have not been built to make them easily accessible to disabled people, many of whom are increasingly using assistive technology to help them glean information from the internet. This software can provide users with a speech or Braille output via a screen reader, text magnification to make reading online content easier and allow them to move around websites using their voices instead of a keyboard or mouse.

Imagine, for instance, if you suddenly weren’t able to see the navigation bar of a website or couldn’t use a mouse; how easy would you find it to get around a site? To understand this more fully try navigating a website that you visit regularly without a mouse, using just the ’tab’ and ’enter’ keys to find the pages you want and the arrows keys to move up and down the text. You will soon understand the issues that face disabled people every day and quickly realise why so many find it difficult to access and transact online.

In fact, government figures show that disabled adults in the UK collectively spend an estimated 80 billion every year, and with many no doubt trying to use the internet for shopping from home, there is a huge opportunity for many commercial organisations that have not yet fully embraced web accessibility. For the public sector, however, there is obviously the need to ensure that information on local and central government websites is accessible to everyone so that no one is discriminated against.

This legal requirement for accessibility is covered under the Disability Discrimination Act DDA 1995 which states that disabled people should not be treated less favourably than others when accessing services. While initially the DDA did not cover web accessibility, the Disability Rights Commission DRC, which was set up by an Act of Parliament to stop discrimination and promote equality of opportunity for disabled people, published a code of practice in 2002 which said that the definition of ’services’ under the DDA included websites. And, in December 2009, the pressure was further increased when the Central Office of Information’s deadline for Delivering Accessible Websites came into force for all central government owned websites.

In terms of ensuring sites are accessible, the accepted standard has been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium’s W3C working party, the Web Accessibility Initiative WAI. The WAI published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.0 WCAG 2.0 which gives checkpoints that a website should meet. These are divided into three levels which are commonly referred to as A, AA, AAA.

• Level A is considered ’high priority’ and all websites are expected to meet this otherwise one or more disabled groups will find it ’impossible’ to access content
• AA is ’medium priority’, meaning that website developers should meet this level of accessibility to avoid some groups finding it ’difficult’ to access information
• AAA ’low priority’ means that some users might find it somewhat difficult to access information

Interestingly, UK law does not state which level is necessary, it simply says that discrimination is illegal. The Government has, however, specified that the AA level to be the minimum requirement for all public sector websites.

In April 2004, the DRC published the report of their formal investigation into web accessibility in the UK. One significant finding was that 81 percent of websites surveyed failed to uphold the most basic W3C accessibility guidelines and specifications, even though many website commissioners and developers claimed to be aware of the importance of making websites accessible.

The world of web accessibility is complicated, but as one of the leading providers of web accessibility services, Shaw Trust aims to provide organisations with clarity on what is actually needed and give peace of mind by ensuring their website or intranet is reaching the widest possible audience and that it is compliant with existing guidelines.

About the Author
Cam Nicholl is the Web Accessibility Service Development Manager at Shaw Trust. Shaw Trust is a national charity, formed in 1982, which helps people with disability or disadvantage to find work and achieve independence. We do this not only by delivering government programmes, but also through our own self-funded initiatives, and by campaigning to change attitudes at all levels. Across the UK around 1,400 staff now oversee a diverse range of more than 200 projects. Find out more about the Web Accessibility Services at Shaw Trust at www.webaccess4all.org.uk.

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