An accessible Web site is essential to your business
The most compelling reason for making your Web site accessible is the financial one: The combined spending power of the people who may benefit is estimated to be more than £200 billion a year.
There are 9 million disabled people in the UK — that’s about one in seven people who visit your site. With a spending power of more than £80 billion a year, it’s a market no business can afford to ignore.
Senior citizens are the fastest growing sector of Internet users. They benefit from accessibility because many are challenged by the same barriers to access as disabled people. The spending power of senior citizens is more than £150 billion a year.
Other people who benefit, include:
- Those with a temporary illness or injury.
- People with dyslexia.
- People with low literacy levels.
- The over-forties who need to increase font size.
- Non-native speakers.
Companies that have made their Web sites accessible have seen a return on investment in less than twelve months.
The technology used to access the Web
More people are accessing the Web via mobile phones and Wi-Fi connected PDAs. Many public places, such as libraries, book stores, cafés, pubs and hotels, have Hotspots (wireless connections to the Internet). Over 13 billion Web pages were accessed with mobile devices in 2005.
Accessible sites achieve higher search engine rankings than equivalent non-accessible ones. Typically, 90% of a site’s visitors will come via search engines, so it’s a benefit worth having.
Using Web standards to design and build your site means it will load faster because there is less code used. Also, the content loads before the images, so people aren’t kept waiting.
Defining Web accessibility
Web accessibility means making your Web site usable by as many people as possible regardless of their ability or the device they’re using. It means not putting up barriers that make it difficult or impossible for people to access your site’s content.
The Web Accessibility Initiative’s definition of Web accessibility is focussed on disabled people. They term access for everyone as universal design, or design for all.
Accessible Web design contributes to better design for other users.
Web Accessibility Initiative
In 1999 the WAI published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a set of guidelines and checkpoints for developers to ensure the sites they build are accessible. The checkpoints are split into three priority levels:
- Priority 1: must be implemented.
- Priority 2: should be implemented.
- Priority 3: may be implemented.
By implementing the checkpoints a Web site can achieve three conformance level:
- All Priority 1 checkpoints passed is Level A.
- All Priority 1 & 2 checkpoints passed is Level Double-A.
- All Priority 1, 2 & 3 checkpoints passed is Level Triple-A.
The techniques and processes used in making your site accessible to disabled people have the knock-on effect of making the site more usable and accessible for everyone.
Inaccessible Web sites are pandemic
Most Web sites fail to even satisfy the most basic standards for accessibility recommended by the WAI (Level-A), making them inaccessible to many people. This means UK companies are missing out on millions of pounds of lost business every day.
In 2004 the Disability Rights Commission’s formal investigation of 1,000 UK commercial Web sites found that less than 19% satisfied all Level-A conformance checkpoints.
And only two (0.02%) achieved Level Double-A conformance, which is the standard the WAI recommends a site should aim to achieve.
Analysis of the instances of Checkpoint violations revealed approximately 108 points per page where a disabled user might encounter a barrier to access.
The Disability Rights Commission
While this is not great news for the people who have problems with inaccessible sites, it does provide a real opportunity for you, because there’s a high probability your competitors’ sites will inaccessible. You have the chance to get a competitive edge.
Your duty under the Disability Discrimination Act
Since 1999 the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) has imposed a legal duty on businesses in the UK to make their Web sites accessible to disabled people. This was affirmed in the Disability Rights Commission’s Code of Practice published in 2002.
The DDA doesn’t specifically mention Web accessibility, or state what level of accessibility is acceptable. Any service you provide to members of the public has to be accessible to disabled people. You have to take reasonable steps to remove any practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use your service.
Service providers should not wait until a disabled person wants to use a service which they provide before they give consideration to their duty to make reasonable adjustments.
DDA Code of Practice
If people can’t use your site, they may not be able to contact you to let you know. They’ll just move on to the next site and you’ll have missed another sale opportunity.
Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 78
In response to its formal investigation into the state of Web accessibility, the DRC commissioned the British Standards Institution (BSI) to produce Publicly Available Specification 78: Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites.
It is not a standard or a legal document; it is a “best practice” document to help those who commission Web sites. The DRC have suggested that the best way for companies to try and comply with the DDA is to follow PAS 78.
With its release the DRC have given notice that they are ready to start getting tough with offending site owners.
We are serving notice that the Disability Rights Commission will use all its powers to secure compliance on this very important matter.
DRC commissioner Michael Burton
They have also called for disabled people to complain about inaccessible sites and that they will pursue the owners through the courts, if necessary.
Accessibility is a process
Assessing accessibility is not about satisfying checkpoints or paying lip service to the DDA, but about understanding how people use your site. It takes more than just running your home page through an online automated testing tool and then slapping on a Bobby Approved badge. And it’s not a “one time” deal; as new content is added and as the site evolves it should be checked regularly to ensure it stays accessible.
It is not possible to make a Web site that meets the needs of everyone at all times, under all conditions. But you can ensure you don’t unnecessarily exclude any group of users. The aim is to make your site as usable by as many people as possible, so your company can serve as many customers as possible.
PAS 78 suggests developing an accessibility policy that lists the barriers you’ve removed from your site and the ones you intend to remove and when you aim to remove them by. A link to an accessibility policy on every page of your site not only demonstrates your commitment to accessibility, but also shows your company is socially aware and responsible.
Want to know more?
Get in touch if you would like to discuss improving your site’s accessibility or would like help implementing your company’s accessibility policy.
If you would like an idea of how accessible your site currently is and where you likely stand with the DDA, you can book an accessibility audit.