Web accessibility required by law in UK Options

[Jean_Manco]

Did you know this? I had no idea that the "Disability Discrimination Act was intended to force provision of access for users of commercial websites" .

From an alt point of view

[Nick_W]

Thanks

What's that thing they talk about from October? I dont recall anything notable....

Looks like a lot of blather to me, and not much substance to it..

The terms of the law are clear. \"The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include accessible websites.\"

Clear? clear? what's so bloody clear about that? - the bloke that wrote it ought to stick to writing about lost pets and village fetes..

[sanity]

How about they start by making their language acessible. :roll:

[McFox]

The terms of the law are clear. \"The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include accessible websites.\"

It's perfectly clear: no-one may purposely discriminate against a disabled person by refusing any service provided to members of the public. Presumably a disabled person must ask first before there is any fawfaw?

That is assuming, of course, that those auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide (although maybe it is not reasonable to provide so it doesn't apply); to ensure that services but not really auxiliary aids becuase that is just padding; are accessible, which might include accessible websites.

Inaccessible websites don't count obviously so if you make no effort in the first place, you'll be ok since the law only applies to accessible websites and then only sometimes ... maybe, because it might apply and then again it might not.

[Jean_Manco]

I must say it's hard to imagine someone suing. "I couldn't buy dog biscuits from El Cheapo's website, M'Lud, and was forced to buy them from Superswish instead, which cost me 6p more. I demand compensation from El Cheapo."

Still - the author of the article makes a few useful points.

[Black_Knight]

the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include accessible websites

The provision of an accessible website is probably (we may have to wait for a test case, but I'd certainly not want to be a test case) a 'reasonable' auxillary aid/service. Therefore the failure to provide such counts as unreasonable. Which in turn, leaves you in breach of the law, by not providing reasonable auxillary aid/service for those with a disability.

However, the level of accessibility has also yet to be properly determined. Provided the disabled person can use the site, even if not with the same ease as someone without the disability, gives wriggle-room legally. So, a page that is hard, but not impossible to decypher through a screen-reader may not be in breach of the law.

Any use of the word 'reasonable' is always a sign that a lot of test cases and case history will make the real determinations of what the law means.

[Adrian]

Where've you been? I've been harping on about the DDA for ages

Basically consider it the same idea as shops havin wheelchair ramps if they have steps to the entrance, and wider isles to allow them to get around.

It's the same principle being applied, if you provide a service, you should make some effort to allow people with various disabilities to be able to use that service.

It may not be particularly clear on what qualifies as reasonable effort Nik, but it's a good idea anyway. As long as people work to the spirit of it, rather than trying to make themelves legal by the skin of their teeth.

I think that's where some of the comments in the article (that I've not read much of yet) come from. People are trying to meet accessibility guidelines, without thinking about accessibility. So they end up with some technicaly accessible, but not so good practically, and hurt usability too.

October was irrelevant. The bit that affects the web has been in force for ages. The web and the October deadline is a misconception that became popular.

[webyourbusiness]

So just how is anything going to be "enforced" for non-UK companies targetting UK consumers from servers outside the UK

[Black_Knight]

It isn't - for now at least.

But this will only serve to increase the fact (by adding further reason) that a proportion of UK users prefer local suppliers, bound by local trading standards and laws. It may also lead to disabled users in other countries learning that they can get better service by looking only at UK pages/companies in time.

[kensplace]

Lets all sue our most hated websites for disablity discrimination, bet that happens soon.... Course you would have to pay someone with a disability to sue, but hey they win, you win, and the world wins if you force a company to clean up its act....

The law is a ***.

[radiorental]

this post has been remove by the author

[Mjausson]

As black_knight was saying, the law has been in effect for a number of years already. In practice, what's expected is W3C level 1 compliance. However, so far all court cases have been settled out of court.

Your best bet for UK web accessibility discussions is http://www.accessifyforum.com/ Very lively and helpful they are over there.

[bragadocchio]

Welcome to the forums, Mjausson,

Good to have you join us here.

I'll second that recommendation. It is a pretty helpful and informative forum.

[Scratch]

WAI 'A' is actually not that easy to achieve. I'm currently consulting for 2 large UK Government Departments, which aim to merge in 2005. They both have extensive web sites, in the order of 100,000 pages. Neither site actually meets WAI 'A', and many pages fail by quite a way.

It's a lot more achievable to deliver a baseline accessibility standard if you have a small site and complete control over the code, but I'm working on projects where there may be 20 different developers working on different components of the same page. It's very difficult to enforce a standard of HTML output across the whole product.

[radiorental]

Scratch, if you mandated that these various developers check their output with a screen reader would you not meet accessibility standards and avoid having to write a style guide?

[Adrian]

There's more to accessibility than checking a site with a screenreader, so you couldn't just get developers to do that and think the job done.

Besides which, that would rely on the developers knowing how to use a screen reader, and how to code appropriately. How many people here have tried JAWS and actually got very far with it for example?