The Disability Right Commision have today released a report testing 1000 sites for accessibility.
There was a webcast about the report shown this morning, which will be accessible on the site from tomorrow.
I'll post some thoughts on the report and the webcast later this evening, hereis a few links to commentary already made.
DRC Report into UK Web accessibility at the Accessify Forums (likely to be very good and probably better than most commentary)
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Statement on Web Access Report from UK Disability Rights Commission
UK fails disabled internet access test from netimperative
Websites 'failing' disabled users from the BBC
UK Accessibility Report by the DRC
Started by Adrian, Apr 14 2004 07:10 AM
29 replies to this topic
#1
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 14 April 2004 - 07:10 AM
#2
James
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 2104 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
Posted 14 April 2004 - 07:15 AM
Hi Adrian,
I noticed that this was being discussed on the BBC news this morning, but had to dash out. Thanks for the links.
Regards,
James
I noticed that this was being discussed on the BBC news this morning, but had to dash out. Thanks for the links.
Regards,
James
#3
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 14 April 2004 - 11:44 AM
Something else worth linking to before I can get my full thoughts down (off to cricket training in a few minutes!).
isolani - The DRC report into UK web accessibility blog entry by Accessify Forum member Isofarro.
Someone worthwhile listening to, I've spoken to Isofarro in the #accessibility chat room on irc.freenode.net.
Some very good comments on the webcast and its going to be updated overtime. Conclusions at the bottom are probably as worthwhile mentioning as anything.
isolani - The DRC report into UK web accessibility blog entry by Accessify Forum member Isofarro.
Someone worthwhile listening to, I've spoken to Isofarro in the #accessibility chat room on irc.freenode.net.
Some very good comments on the webcast and its going to be updated overtime. Conclusions at the bottom are probably as worthwhile mentioning as anything.
Conclusions
The headlines are:
Many businesses are not conforming
Most businesses are vulnerable to a legal challenge
81% of websites fail minimum levels of access
The majority of problems were not contained in the WAI guidelines (WAI dispute this)
The knowledge deficit is so severe that government must consider involvement in promoting accreditation and registration (presumably of web developers)
#4
Ransak
-
- Members
- 612 posts
Light Speed Member
Posted 14 April 2004 - 12:42 PM
The knowledge deficit is so severe that government must consider involvement in promoting accreditation and registration (presumably of web developers)
This would concern me very much, I hope that the U.S. does not follow suit.
Frank Vollono
#5
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 14 April 2004 - 02:26 PM
Does not follow suit in which sense Frank? In setting up legislation to try and ensure people take accessibility seriously? Or in the government promoting accreditation and registration?
#6
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 14 April 2004 - 03:52 PM
Right, stupidly, knowing that I would want to make some comments here, I made some notes from the webcast this morning. Knowing that I also wasn't going to be able to type up a long set of comments on it from work, I didn't think to bring the notes home to use when I could write this up :roll:
So, I'll do what I can from memory and point you to a couple other websites to fill in the blanks
Also the sandwich lady turned up while it was on, buying my lunch is more important than watching a webcast uninterupted, so I had to miss a few minutes
I've grabbed a few of following bits from the DRC website and the report itself as they are worded better than I would manage.
OK, an overview of whats going on. The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is an independent body established in April 2000 by Act of Parliament to stop discrimination and promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. (Taken from the DRC website).
They commisioned The Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design at City University, London to survey a large and representative sample of websites used by the British public. (Taken from report)
This is brought about by the following: In Great Britain, Part 3 of the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) requires providers of goods, facilities and services to avoid the less favourable treatment of disabled people and also to make reasonable adjustments, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services, to any practices, policies or procedures which make it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of the services they provide. Insofar as a website in itself constitutes a service, or is the primary medium for the delivery of a service, it will therefore be covered by Part 3 of the Act.(Taken from report)
The DDA was done in 1995 and certain parts have been brought into force at different times. The bit affecting websites is already in force and has been for sometime. This is nothing new, it is the same legislation that affects high street stores and the like. In a sense, why should similar rules apply to websites? Clearly with buildings, physical obstructions are probably a bigger impairment than visual problems. On the web, Vision is obviously a bigger issue as the physical side of things is much reduced.
It would be nice if people made things accessible because its the right thing to do, in reality though, that isn't the case and some people need the threat of legal action to encourage them. Not ideal, but I support it in that progress would be a lot slower without a legal requirement.
Anyway, back to the actual report.
The webcast started with a short intro by the head of the DRC and was quickly followed by a visually impaired person (I'm not sure if he was totally blind or just had vision problems) using JAWS screenreader on the CNN website to demonstrate some of the problems of browsing inaccessible sites in a screenreader. Difficult to imagine unless you see someone try and actually use it. Controls for screenreaders like JAWS are quite esoteric and its not something a sighted person would likely pick up very well.
It was interesting seeing the problems actually caused by table heavy sites in screenreaders, you get no real clues as to whether theres any information in a table you actually want, or if you can safely skip it. And even with tabulated data, it can be difficult to know what the data in each cell actually relates too.
Next was a lady presenting the report itself and the results.
They followed the WAI guidelines from the W3C for the testing and ran automatic tests to begin with. I don't know if they actually mentioned what application they used to test, but it would have been something like Bobby or Cynthia I expect.
Running these automated checks on the 1000 sites in the report revealed that only 19% complied with the most basic level of Web Accessibility, Priority A. This is the level that all sites really should meet to be in any way accessible. They acknowledged that these automatic checks are also not terribly accurate as some things are very difficult to check programatically, thinking of prinicples of accessibility rather than actual specified code. Therefore the number of sites meeting level A compliance is probably even less than that 19%.
After doing these checks they continued to Level AA, the level that sites should support, but may not cause a site to be totally inaccessible if not followed. After doing them automatically, they also did them manually and considered that only 2 sites of the 1000 met AA compliance. Thats a pretty appalingly low figure.
No sites managed AAA compliance, though its much more reasonable for people not to attempt this level too much. It would be nice if people did, but level AA is considered a pretty good goal.
Moving on, they did some practical user testing with the sites. Some fairly standards tests done by many people for usability, set specific tasks to complete on a particular site.
Of these tasks, blind people only managed to successfully complete them 53% of the time. Just think if every time you browsed the web, every other web site was so poorly done you couldn't manage to do what you went there for. Thats suggesting some pretty high levels of frustration. The partially sighted group managed 76% completion while the groups for Dyslexics, physically impaired and hearing impaired all managed over 80%. The average throughout all groups was 76% completion.
They then did something very interesting which I think people like Kin would be interested in. They compared task completion times between impaired people and non-impaired. Clearly the impaired group were generally slower, 3 to 5 times slower. However the interesting point is that sites that were more accessible, showed noticably faster completion times for unimpaired testers. Therefore suggesting that higher levels of accessibility also promote higher levels of usability.
How do you make your site more usable?
Make it more accessible to impaired visitors.
They then collated some of this data and noticed that there were nearly 600 reasons for a the various sites being innaccessible.
This is where some of the contention comes in. The DRC report suggests that only 45% of these noted issues are covered by the WAI guidance. Therefore meaning that even if a site were to be AAA compliant, they would not cover 55% (around 300) of the issues people raised.
The W3C contests this in the initial response I linked to in the first post.
They feel 95% of the issues raised are covered by WAI guidance, therefore suggesting that if a site follows them, they should cover all but 5% of the highlighted problems. A much better ratio, though I doubt we have heard the last of this point.
Theres a very interesting point here as well though. The DRC report suggests that of those 45% of issues covered by the WAI guidance, 82% of them can be picked up by adhering to just 8 checks.
By covering merely 8 checkpoints, you can clear up nearly 40% of highlighted accessiblity problems. Does that not sound like a worthy investment of time?
Thats probably the best bits of the reports findings, there is a bit more about awareness of accessibility, though they got a fairly poor response to it, so the findings may not be terribly accurate. They do however suggest that the web development industry as a whole is waking up to accessibility, but that good meaning designers and developers are being stopped by clients when trying to build in accessibility.
Then followed a gentleman explaining the DRC's recommendations based on these findings. These were pretty broad and far reaching. Not picking out any one thing in particular, but pretty much saying that everyone involved needs to do better.
This not only includes web designers and developers in making accessible sites, but also more support, training and advice for impaired users to ensure they have the best tools to suit their specific problems and know how to use them properly.
It also included the makers of assistive technologies to improve these products and make them work better and more correctly (if you thought coding for IE and NS4 was tricky, some of the screenreaders and the like are just as bad, if not worse for web standards support).
It also included training estabilishments, not just degree courses, but short courses as well, dealing in web design, should teach accessible design.
It also included makers of website creation tools to improve the way they assist developers in making accesisble sites.
As a big also, it includes website commisioners and owners, to empower them to require that tenders require accessibility consideration and that the finished product meets these requirements. It is afterall, the website owner, not the web designer, who gets taken to court if someone accuses them of not making reasonable effort.
there then followed some questions, but to be honest, I can't really remember what they were. One of them was posted on the website asking in what cases would you be able to forego accessiblity for style issues. the very pleasant answer was that there is no issue, there is never a case for reducing accessibility for the sake of style. The idea that accesisble cannot be stylish is a myth. I personally feel a myth spouted by lazy designers who just don't want to take accessibility into consideration. IMHO thats one thing that seperate a good designer and a great designer.
I think it was a very good report overall. You can probably argue about some of the points and how accurate some of it is. It is however very good publicity for the idea. There's already a post elsewhere on the board of someone reacting sharply to the BBC article suggesting a lot of website owners could be sued over their currently inaccessible sites. And I've seen the same in a couple other places.
Its the kind of report a designer can use as leverage to get bosses or clients to sit up and take notice of it a bit more. Its the kind of report that can make more designers sit up and listen a bit more!
Generally its pretty good, accessiblity experts could probably nit pick at bits, it only mentions WAI for example, not certain other things (The US Section508 can also be used for guidance), no mention of things like accesskeys as they are not part of the WAI Guidelines and such like.
I think most people pushing for accessibility would see it as an overall good idea and good result to move things forward.
If you've made it this far, I'm amazed but very happy, have a piece of cake and a cup of tea
So, I'll do what I can from memory and point you to a couple other websites to fill in the blanks
Also the sandwich lady turned up while it was on, buying my lunch is more important than watching a webcast uninterupted, so I had to miss a few minutes I've grabbed a few of following bits from the DRC website and the report itself as they are worded better than I would manage.
OK, an overview of whats going on. The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is an independent body established in April 2000 by Act of Parliament to stop discrimination and promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. (Taken from the DRC website).
They commisioned The Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design at City University, London to survey a large and representative sample of websites used by the British public. (Taken from report)
This is brought about by the following: In Great Britain, Part 3 of the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) requires providers of goods, facilities and services to avoid the less favourable treatment of disabled people and also to make reasonable adjustments, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services, to any practices, policies or procedures which make it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of the services they provide. Insofar as a website in itself constitutes a service, or is the primary medium for the delivery of a service, it will therefore be covered by Part 3 of the Act.(Taken from report)
The DDA was done in 1995 and certain parts have been brought into force at different times. The bit affecting websites is already in force and has been for sometime. This is nothing new, it is the same legislation that affects high street stores and the like. In a sense, why should similar rules apply to websites? Clearly with buildings, physical obstructions are probably a bigger impairment than visual problems. On the web, Vision is obviously a bigger issue as the physical side of things is much reduced.
It would be nice if people made things accessible because its the right thing to do, in reality though, that isn't the case and some people need the threat of legal action to encourage them. Not ideal, but I support it in that progress would be a lot slower without a legal requirement.
Anyway, back to the actual report.
The webcast started with a short intro by the head of the DRC and was quickly followed by a visually impaired person (I'm not sure if he was totally blind or just had vision problems) using JAWS screenreader on the CNN website to demonstrate some of the problems of browsing inaccessible sites in a screenreader. Difficult to imagine unless you see someone try and actually use it. Controls for screenreaders like JAWS are quite esoteric and its not something a sighted person would likely pick up very well.
It was interesting seeing the problems actually caused by table heavy sites in screenreaders, you get no real clues as to whether theres any information in a table you actually want, or if you can safely skip it. And even with tabulated data, it can be difficult to know what the data in each cell actually relates too.
Next was a lady presenting the report itself and the results.
They followed the WAI guidelines from the W3C for the testing and ran automatic tests to begin with. I don't know if they actually mentioned what application they used to test, but it would have been something like Bobby or Cynthia I expect.
Running these automated checks on the 1000 sites in the report revealed that only 19% complied with the most basic level of Web Accessibility, Priority A. This is the level that all sites really should meet to be in any way accessible. They acknowledged that these automatic checks are also not terribly accurate as some things are very difficult to check programatically, thinking of prinicples of accessibility rather than actual specified code. Therefore the number of sites meeting level A compliance is probably even less than that 19%.
After doing these checks they continued to Level AA, the level that sites should support, but may not cause a site to be totally inaccessible if not followed. After doing them automatically, they also did them manually and considered that only 2 sites of the 1000 met AA compliance. Thats a pretty appalingly low figure.
No sites managed AAA compliance, though its much more reasonable for people not to attempt this level too much. It would be nice if people did, but level AA is considered a pretty good goal.
Moving on, they did some practical user testing with the sites. Some fairly standards tests done by many people for usability, set specific tasks to complete on a particular site.
Of these tasks, blind people only managed to successfully complete them 53% of the time. Just think if every time you browsed the web, every other web site was so poorly done you couldn't manage to do what you went there for. Thats suggesting some pretty high levels of frustration. The partially sighted group managed 76% completion while the groups for Dyslexics, physically impaired and hearing impaired all managed over 80%. The average throughout all groups was 76% completion.
They then did something very interesting which I think people like Kin would be interested in. They compared task completion times between impaired people and non-impaired. Clearly the impaired group were generally slower, 3 to 5 times slower. However the interesting point is that sites that were more accessible, showed noticably faster completion times for unimpaired testers. Therefore suggesting that higher levels of accessibility also promote higher levels of usability.
How do you make your site more usable?
Make it more accessible to impaired visitors.
They then collated some of this data and noticed that there were nearly 600 reasons for a the various sites being innaccessible.
This is where some of the contention comes in. The DRC report suggests that only 45% of these noted issues are covered by the WAI guidance. Therefore meaning that even if a site were to be AAA compliant, they would not cover 55% (around 300) of the issues people raised.
The W3C contests this in the initial response I linked to in the first post.
They feel 95% of the issues raised are covered by WAI guidance, therefore suggesting that if a site follows them, they should cover all but 5% of the highlighted problems. A much better ratio, though I doubt we have heard the last of this point.
Theres a very interesting point here as well though. The DRC report suggests that of those 45% of issues covered by the WAI guidance, 82% of them can be picked up by adhering to just 8 checks.
Checkpoints accounting for most reported problems
Checkpoint Priority
1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text
element 1
2.2 Ensure that foreground and background
colour combinations provide sufficient
contrast when viewed by someone having
colour deficits or when viewed on a black
and white screen 2/3
6.3 Ensure that pages are usable when scripts,
applets, or other programmatic objects are
turned off or not supported. If this is not
possible, provide equivalent information on
an alternative accessible page 1
7.3 Until user agents allow users to freeze
moving content, avoid movement in pages 2
10.1 Until user agents allow users to turn off
spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups
or other windows to appear and do not
change the current window without
informing the user 2
12.3 Divide large blocks of information into
more manageable groups where natural
and appropriate 2
13.1 Clearly identify the target of each link 2
14.1 Use the clearest and simplest language
appropriate for a site?s content 1
By covering merely 8 checkpoints, you can clear up nearly 40% of highlighted accessiblity problems. Does that not sound like a worthy investment of time?
Thats probably the best bits of the reports findings, there is a bit more about awareness of accessibility, though they got a fairly poor response to it, so the findings may not be terribly accurate. They do however suggest that the web development industry as a whole is waking up to accessibility, but that good meaning designers and developers are being stopped by clients when trying to build in accessibility.
Then followed a gentleman explaining the DRC's recommendations based on these findings. These were pretty broad and far reaching. Not picking out any one thing in particular, but pretty much saying that everyone involved needs to do better.
This not only includes web designers and developers in making accessible sites, but also more support, training and advice for impaired users to ensure they have the best tools to suit their specific problems and know how to use them properly.
It also included the makers of assistive technologies to improve these products and make them work better and more correctly (if you thought coding for IE and NS4 was tricky, some of the screenreaders and the like are just as bad, if not worse for web standards support).
It also included training estabilishments, not just degree courses, but short courses as well, dealing in web design, should teach accessible design.
It also included makers of website creation tools to improve the way they assist developers in making accesisble sites.
As a big also, it includes website commisioners and owners, to empower them to require that tenders require accessibility consideration and that the finished product meets these requirements. It is afterall, the website owner, not the web designer, who gets taken to court if someone accuses them of not making reasonable effort.
there then followed some questions, but to be honest, I can't really remember what they were. One of them was posted on the website asking in what cases would you be able to forego accessiblity for style issues. the very pleasant answer was that there is no issue, there is never a case for reducing accessibility for the sake of style. The idea that accesisble cannot be stylish is a myth. I personally feel a myth spouted by lazy designers who just don't want to take accessibility into consideration. IMHO thats one thing that seperate a good designer and a great designer.
I think it was a very good report overall. You can probably argue about some of the points and how accurate some of it is. It is however very good publicity for the idea. There's already a post elsewhere on the board of someone reacting sharply to the BBC article suggesting a lot of website owners could be sued over their currently inaccessible sites. And I've seen the same in a couple other places.
Its the kind of report a designer can use as leverage to get bosses or clients to sit up and take notice of it a bit more. Its the kind of report that can make more designers sit up and listen a bit more!
Generally its pretty good, accessiblity experts could probably nit pick at bits, it only mentions WAI for example, not certain other things (The US Section508 can also be used for guidance), no mention of things like accesskeys as they are not part of the WAI Guidelines and such like.
I think most people pushing for accessibility would see it as an overall good idea and good result to move things forward.
If you've made it this far, I'm amazed but very happy, have a piece of cake and a cup of tea
#7
bwelford
-
- Moderators
-
- 8894 posts
Eyes Like Hawk Moderator
- Twitter:http://twitter.com/BWelford
- Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/bwelford
Posted 14 April 2004 - 04:40 PM
That's fascinating stuff, Adrian, which I'm sure will have all sorts of consequences.
I'm not very close to all this. Does anyone know how the US legislation compares with the UK legislation? In particular, is one tougher than the other? How do any timetables for compliance compare?
I'm not very close to all this. Does anyone know how the US legislation compares with the UK legislation? In particular, is one tougher than the other? How do any timetables for compliance compare?
#8
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 14 April 2004 - 04:54 PM
As far as I know there isn't a US/Canadian equivilent to the DDA Barry. there is however the Section 508 guidelines in the US, though as far as I'm aware, that only affects government websites.
Thats not to say people shouldn't take notice of accessibility or that similar legislation will not be put in place in other countries though.
Thats not to say people shouldn't take notice of accessibility or that similar legislation will not be put in place in other countries though.
#9
amjid
-
- Members
- 134 posts
Gravity Master Member
Posted 15 April 2004 - 03:57 PM
Adrian,
Thanks for the great round-up.
I have downloaded the report so will be reading it this weekend.
I agree with you on the point that you can't really appreciate accessibility issues until you actually use a screen reader or observe a disabled person actually using a website. I experienced this for the first time recenlty and it is certainly an eye-opener.
The key issue for me is not to view accessibility as a 'box checking' exercise and instead actually make sure the site is usable by those it is trying to address.
Amjid
Thanks for the great round-up.
I have downloaded the report so will be reading it this weekend.
I agree with you on the point that you can't really appreciate accessibility issues until you actually use a screen reader or observe a disabled person actually using a website. I experienced this for the first time recenlty and it is certainly an eye-opener.
The key issue for me is not to view accessibility as a 'box checking' exercise and instead actually make sure the site is usable by those it is trying to address.
Amjid
#10
DaveChild
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 3446 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/Dave_Child
Posted 16 April 2004 - 03:51 AM
Interesting stuff, this, though I have to admit to being a little confused.
Egg.com, for example, was one of few sites listed as having excellent accessibility. 5 out of 5, in fact. Yet the site doesn't seem to be particularly accessible. The pages are amazingly bloated, with inline styles and javascript, and tonnes of coding errors, eg (there are far more than these, but to demonstrate just a few):
The table based layout uses spacer gifs extensively, and there are no alt tags (even blank ones) on them. There's no DTD. There's no character encoding. There's javascript outside the body and head areas. And a screen reader sees this:
I was just curious as a result - what criteria did they use to measure the accessibility of sites in this survey? It's a little worrying that they would hold this site up as a gleaming example to others, when as far as I can tell, it's almost completely inaccessible ...
Egg.com, for example, was one of few sites listed as having excellent accessibility. 5 out of 5, in fact. Yet the site doesn't seem to be particularly accessible. The pages are amazingly bloated, with inline styles and javascript, and tonnes of coding errors, eg (there are far more than these, but to demonstrate just a few):
<script language="JavaScript"> // --> </script>
<img src='/com.egg/images/spacer.gif' width='1' height='1'>
<script language="JavaScript1.2">
The table based layout uses spacer gifs extensively, and there are no alt tags (even blank ones) on them. There's no DTD. There's no character encoding. There's javascript outside the body and head areas. And a screen reader sees this:
[colourscheme_grass_390x50.gif]
Egg TM.
[globalnav_toprow_bdr.gif]
Banking Investing Insuring Click here to see all your accounts
Company info Security and privacy Legal info Help Contact us
[egg_nav_spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif]
find out more about Egg Money Manager
[spacer.gif] [spacer.gif]
Find out more about Egg Loans
[spacer.gif]
Find out more about Egg Card
[spacer.gif]
Look after your money
quick links
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] Egg Money Manager demo Egg Money Manager demo
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] Egg Card - find out more Egg Card - find out more
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] Loans - great offers Loans - great offers [spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] Bonus rate for savings Bonus rate for savings
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] 10% off motor insurance 10% off motor insurance
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif] About Chip and PIN About Chip and PIN [spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
Find out more about Egg Savings Accounts
[spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif]
[spacer.gif]
I was just curious as a result - what criteria did they use to measure the accessibility of sites in this survey? It's a little worrying that they would hold this site up as a gleaming example to others, when as far as I can tell, it's almost completely inaccessible ...
#11
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 16 April 2004 - 04:41 AM
Where did you find it say Egg.com had good accessibility Dave? I can't find them mentioned in the report, and they actually said in the webcast that they asked the company who did the tests specifically not to tell them which 1000 sites were used or how individual sites rated.
Certainly a quick Automated test by Cynthia shows the home page does not meet priority 1 tests for accessibility.
Certainly a quick Automated test by Cynthia shows the home page does not meet priority 1 tests for accessibility.
#12
DaveChild
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 3446 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/Dave_Child
Posted 16 April 2004 - 04:44 AM
It is true that they were asked not to name and shame the 800 or so poor ones, but today City University revealed 5 "examples of excellence", according to The Register.
#13
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 16 April 2004 - 04:49 AM
Typical :roll:
Looking into it now for ya
Looking into it now for ya
#14
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 16 April 2004 - 05:29 AM
It seems that perhaps some of their results are a bit odd. There's also problems highlighted with the Scottish Spinal Injuries site.
Not a great advert for the report. If people get hold of that and becomes widely known that some of the examples of accessbility excellance are actually pretty poor, its really going to damage the cause.
Not a great advert for the report. If people get hold of that and becomes widely known that some of the examples of accessbility excellance are actually pretty poor, its really going to damage the cause.
#15
DaveChild
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 3446 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/Dave_Child
Posted 16 April 2004 - 06:42 AM
Very true, Adrian. I hope it doesn't detract from the overall message, because accessibility is very important, not just for the disabled. As more and more devices are internet-capable, it will become paramount to create accessible sites.
I would assume that the number that fail the basic guidelines would probably be higher than they state based on those 5 examples. But the fact that they have cited those sites as examples of excellence, when they are anything but, inspires little faith in the report itself.
Of course, had they not named any sites at all, there would be no issue and the message would remain untarnished.
I would quite like to see a report showing how many of the same 1000 sites passed which level of the Bobby guidelines, if any.
I would assume that the number that fail the basic guidelines would probably be higher than they state based on those 5 examples. But the fact that they have cited those sites as examples of excellence, when they are anything but, inspires little faith in the report itself.
Of course, had they not named any sites at all, there would be no issue and the message would remain untarnished.
I would quite like to see a report showing how many of the same 1000 sites passed which level of the Bobby guidelines, if any.
#16
Adrian
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 5773 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
- Twitter:tychoanomaly
Posted 16 April 2004 - 07:12 AM
Of course, had they not named any sites at all, there would be no issue and the message would remain untarnished.
I've just been discussing this over at Accessify. The fact they have incorrectly named those sites as being very accessible, only harms the credibility of the report. There are several other rants posted and in the process of being posted ranting about this. It completely dilutes the positive effect of the report and and you yourself have shown, its simply causing more confusion among developers.
#17
Conwy
-
- Members
- 1 posts
New To Community
Posted 11 June 2004 - 08:41 AM
Hi Folks, I'm new to this forum, but I notice a couple of posts questioning US legislation: In addition to 508 you also have The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This requires State and
local governments and places of public accommodation to furnish
appropriate auxiliary aids and services where necessary to ensure
effective communication with individuals with disabilities,
unless doing so would result in a fundamental alteration to the
program or service or in an undue burden.
Russell aka Conwy
local governments and places of public accommodation to furnish
appropriate auxiliary aids and services where necessary to ensure
effective communication with individuals with disabilities,
unless doing so would result in a fundamental alteration to the
program or service or in an undue burden.
Russell aka Conwy
#18
bwelford
-
- Moderators
-
- 8894 posts
Eyes Like Hawk Moderator
- Twitter:http://twitter.com/BWelford
- Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/bwelford
Posted 11 June 2004 - 08:46 AM
Welcome to the Forums, Conwy. :wave:
Do you know whether 508 or ADA is really causing much change yet? Is there a serious investment of effort to make this happen? Are there any teeth that people are beginning to feel in the US?
Do you know whether 508 or ADA is really causing much change yet? Is there a serious investment of effort to make this happen? Are there any teeth that people are beginning to feel in the US?
#19
bragadocchio
-
- Hall Of Fame
-
- 15634 posts
Honored One Who Served Moderator Alumni
Posted 11 June 2004 - 05:12 PM
Hi Russell,
Welcome to the forums.
I'm not sure that there's really been that much of a push yet to get web sites to comply with section 508 or the ADA yet.
I've seen a few state home pages with "Bobby approved" seals on them which fail the descretionary part of the Bobby validation.
Anyway, good to have you aboard. Hope we can pursue that a little further.
Welcome to the forums.
I'm not sure that there's really been that much of a push yet to get web sites to comply with section 508 or the ADA yet.
I've seen a few state home pages with "Bobby approved" seals on them which fail the descretionary part of the Bobby validation.
Anyway, good to have you aboard. Hope we can pursue that a little further.
#20
kensplace
-
- 1000 Post Club
-
- 1489 posts
Time Traveler Member
Posted 11 June 2004 - 05:25 PM
Out of interest (seriously), do the rules cover mental illnesses? Or just physical?
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users
