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| INFO AND LINKS The The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (usually shortened to the DDA) specifies that a 'service provider' must take 'reasonable adjustments' to ensure disabled people can make use of their service, so as to avoid any discrimination against disabled people, which offering different services than able-bodied could be seen as constituting. A third party could claim damages including compensation for injury to feelings. No cases have come to light yet but many are said to have been settled out of court - and some are bound to get to actual proceedings, say experts. And in a separate case, Australian judges ruled against the Sydney Organising Committee for the 2000 Olympic Games on the basis that its site was not fully accessible to a blind person. The Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) has become an authority in helping organisations get their websites more accessible. Go to its |
Disabled people are unfairly blocked from using a huge number of websites, both private and public. The good news is some sites, especially union and local government ones, have started tackling the hidden issue of poor access, says Gary Flood
Stuck on the web
If there was a shop or a council service on your street that wouldn’t
let people with hearing aids or red hair in, chances are you would object
to such discrimination - and would probably shop or seek help elsewhere.
Isn’t it surprising then that in 2004 huge swathes of people are
being ‘stopped’ from entering what’s fast becoming one
of society’s main sources of goods, products and services –
the internet.
Who’s stopping them? You would have thought websites would be more
than eager to get visitors. But because so many of them fail to make their
online presences usable by the proportion of the population who have disability,
they’re effectively barring the doors.
It’s actually been the law of the land since 1999 that there can
be no discrimination in cyberspace. But when it comes to making sure the
website is fully accessible to disabled people, the vast majority of organisations
seem happy to take the risk of being sued rather than make the often quite
simple moves to make the improvements in navigability the law - and business
sense, surely - demand.
Experts say the message is getting out – but slowly, according to
Henny Swan, a web accessibility consultant working for the RNIB. “Charities
and unions are doing well but that’s not to say the commercial sector
is that far behind,” she says. “Some of the more complex sites
will simply take more time to get up to speed.”
In April a major study by the Disability Rights Commission, based on a
24 months study of 1,000 websites in the UK covering both the public
and private sectors, found that 808 (81%) failed on automated testing
to reach the minimum standard for web access, and just 19% of websites
examined complied at this level. Only two websites were AA (mid-level)
compliant, and no website achieved the highest, or AAA, level - including
government sites studied.
Problems commonly cited by disabled people using the web, according to
the research, were: cluttered and complex page structures; confusing and
disorienting navigation mechanisms; failure to describe images; inappropriate
use of colours and poor contrast between content and background.
The investigation also found high levels of ignorance among web developers
on both the steps needed and the costs of making their websites accessible
for disabled people. It also revealed that blind people, which is estimated
to number two million in the UK, were the most disenfranchised amongst
disabled users.
But some sites, especially in local government, non-profit and union sites,
are taking steps to make their information and service truly open to all.
In April, 
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council re-launched its website with rules conforming to the W3C (World Wide
Web Consortium)'s AAA standard, generally reckoned at the moment to be
the highest possible guidelines and beyond DDA requirements (also see
box on UNISON, right).
"We wanted to tackle this issue head on," says Andrew Kirkham,
operational head of the council's e-services. "The Act says to make
'reasonable adjustments' - but we wanted to make this as accessible as
possible, as we need to serve all our residents."
Services available through the site include paying council tax online,
traffic and travel information, business directories, information on council
services and local events. The site will eventually provide online access
to hundreds of the authority's services. Disabled-friendly improvements
to the site include support for text-reading software, design efforts
to improve navigability, more consistency in overall functionality, offering
navigation keys instead of just mouse-driven navigation, support for a
'breadcrumb trail' that makes it very easy for users to retrace their
steps, as well as the standard text-only version of all pages.
The changes range from the obvious - strict rules on colours and contrasts
to ensure maximum readability - to the subtle, such as the fact that there's
not too much upper case text on the site, as it can confuse some text
readers. Important to making these changes, he adds, were input from local
disabled people.
Disability is a complex term, remember. Because you may think of yourself
as able-bodied – but forget that one of the most common side effects
of old age is impaired sight. And what about when you injure your hand
and can’t use your mouse the way you used to, even temporarily?
Will website access become a bigger issue as the generation that grew
up with the Internet gets old with it? One thing’s for certain –
in 2004 there’s no excuse for shutting your doors to anyone, even
in cyberspace.
|
THE UNISON WEBSITE The union's website scores highly in competitions for good website
design and functionality. In 2003 the judges of the TUC Press
& PR Awards gave the site a "high commendation"
for best use of electronic communications. |
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