The Disability Discrimination Act

Hard of vision users and your web site

Contrary to popular opinion the changes made by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 2005 were not the start of the legal obligation to make a web site accessible to the visually impaired - in fact that has been a legal obligation since 1999.

It still remains a woolly subject, with the two main supporters of the DDA, the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and the DRC (Disability Rights Commission) still not able (at the time of writing) to offer specific information on the laws and what a web site specifically needs to do to be accessible.

The DDA states that web site owners have a duty to ensure that the site is not 'unreasonably difficult' for disabled people to access. You are duty bound to take reasonable steps to remove any difficulty.

This is where it gets a bit cloudy!

There is currently no definitive definition of what is 'unreasonably difficult' and also what constitutes 'reasonable steps' to remove that difficulty.

What about PAS 78?

In April 2004 the British Standards Institute (BSI) conducted a formal investigation into the state of web accessibility in the UK. This revealved that 81% of web sites tested failed to comply with the simplest of WCAG recommendations (Level A).

As a direct result of this they commissioned the Publicly Available Specification (PAS 78) which, 'Outlines good practice in commissioning websites that are accessible to and used by disabled people'.

The PAS was launched on the 8th of March 2006 with following items being the highlights from it

• The DRC are indicating that they will act upon legislation because there is no excuse for not complying now.
• The W3C guidelines are the basis for compliance.
• CSS web sites are seen as best practice, with content and presentation separated with (X)HTML and Style Sheets.
• A site should be viewable at 800px x 600px resolution without horiztontal scrolling
• Flash and PDF content can be used, but it must be used properly
• Site Owners are responsible for their site, not the developers or software.
• If your site isn't compatible, admit it and publish a date when you will fix it.

You can buy a copy of the PAS 78 Guide from here: BSI guide to PAS 78 (it's £30!) or alternatively, contact us and we'll help you understand it...

So, can you get sued for having a bad website?

Essentially, yes you can, although at the time of writing, no-one has been sued under UK law. However, this does not mean that a case will not be forthcoming. A visually impaired Australian man successfully sued the organisers of the Sydney Olympics because their web site was not accessible to him - and since Australian law is not dissimilar to our own, it is surely only a matter of time...

At the launch of the PAS 78 Nick O'Brian, Director of Legal and Operations at the DRC advised that should the case arise the PAS could be cited in court.

So how do I find out if my site is compatible?

While there is no official validation tool, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) validation process is commonly accepted as being the bench mark for making your site accessible:

Open the W3C validator to check if your web site is compliant.

What does this mean for me?

If you have a web site already, you should be aware of the implications of the DDA and PAS 78 and be doing your best to ensure you are within the law. If you are looking for a new web site, you should be aware of your obligation to cater for the disabled.

A point to note: Compliant web sites are more involved to build than non-compliant sites, so they take longer, they require more care and can ultimately cost more. You should be sure that your web development company is going to spend the time needed to make your site compliant and ultimately get you within the law. So when you are given prices for a web project, check that it is a like for like quote and that the company knows enough about the subject to carryout the necessary work.

Sources:

Guild of Accessible Web Designers | W3C | Web Credible | RNIB Web Access Center | BBC