There’s been widespread speculation about new legislation being introduced in the UK to ensure that websites are accessible to disabled users. In fact, many countries have already introduced some kind of law about this. (If you’re not UK-based, please see this excellent list of links to country-specific information at UI Access.)
I’ll now debunk four myths about web accessibility and the law for those involved in the design and development of UK-based websites.
1. The Disability Discrimination Act doesn’t mention websites#section2
Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act refers to the provision of goods, facilities and services, and yes, doesn’t mention websites — in fact, it doesn’t mention any specific services for that matter. However, the Code of Practice for the act explicitly mentions websites and can be downloaded in its entirety from the DRC (Disability Rights Commission) website.
The relevant quotes from this 175-page document are:
- 2.2 (p7): “The 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.”
- 4.7 (p39): “From 1st October 1999 a service provider has to take reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services.”
- 2.13 – 2.17 (p11-13): “What services are affected by the Act? An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the act.”
- 5.23 (p71): “For people with visual impairments, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include … accessible websites.”
- 5.26 (p68): “For people with hearing disabilities, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include … accessible websites.”
2. My website needs to be accessible by October 2004#section3
It’s widely thought that the new laws will be implemented in October of this year, when the final part of the Act comes into force. This final piece of legislation actually refers to service providers having to consider making permanent physical adjustments to their premises and is not related to the Internet in any way.
The law about accessible websites came into force on 1st October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the Act was published on 27th May 2002. This means that the majority of websites are already in breach of the law.
3. I’ll be sued if my website isn’t accessible#section4
Not so much a myth, actually. The RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) claims that they’ve considered taking up a number of legal cases against organizations with regard to their websites. When they have raised the issue of website accessibility, companies have typically made the necessary changes rather than face the prospect of legal action.
The DRC has launched a formal investigation into 1000 websites and expects to publish their findings some time this year. If your website’s on this list then you’ll have to start thinking about making it accessible to all web users in the very near future.
Most of us probably won’t be affected by this new law though. The only time it will affect you is if a disabled user can’t access your website and decides to complain about it — it’s up to you to decide whether you think this is likely or not.
4. I should follow the RNIB’s advice to be compliant#section5
The RNIB have a large web accessibility resources area on their website, offering advice and tips. This isn’t a comprehensive resource, though, as it’s very much aimed at providing access to blind Internet users and largely excludes users facing other access problems.
If, or perhaps more appropriately when, a case makes it to court I should imagine that the much more extensive W3C accessibility guidelines will be used to assess a website’s accessibility and ultimately decide the outcome of the case.
Priority 1 guidelines (which must be satisfied according to the W3C) will almost definitely have to be adhered to. Priority 2 guidelines (which should be satisfied and are the EU recommended level of compliance), or some part of them, will probably need to be adhered to as well.
The courts will no doubt take guidance from the outcome of an Australian case in 2000, when a blind man successfully sued the Sydney Olympics organizing committee over their inaccessible website. The outcome of the case was influenced heavily by the W3C guidelines.
additionally to my last comment: before anybody starts saying something like “well, in that case, should we have radio made accessible to the deaf?”…the internet itself is designed for transmission of text data. images, multimedia, flash and all the other whiz-bang stuff came later. also, it does not require any modification to send information to users in whatever form they require (text, audio, video, whatever). radio, on the other hand, was designed from the start as an “audio only” medium, and receivers would require heavy modifications to allow for text to be sent along as well…and that is why deaf users may well prefer to use never technologies (tv with captions, or indeed the web) which offer non-audio alternatives easily.
http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/accessuk/4/#c7606
“Trenton’s points are well made, and with a little luck,
should help in stemming the UK tide of so-called ‘accessibility
consultants’ who see accessibility compliance as the next
Klondike but wouldn’t know a good looking website if it jumped
up and bit them on the arse.”
Run Trenton’s site http://www.webcredible.co.uk/ through
the accessibility checker at http://www.webxact.com/
and you’ll find he doesn’t practice what he preaches.
Hey Danny ;),
I didn’t say that Trenton’s site was good-looking or even accessible, just that his points about the UK legal situation were well made.
Danny: Run Trenton’s site http://www.webcredible.co.uk/ through
the accessibility checker at http://www.webxact.com/
and you’ll find he doesn’t practice what he preaches.
This is going way off topic, but in terms of accessibility webxact.com is obviously not always correct. It states that webcredible.co.uk has images without alt tags, which isn’t true.
Re: http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/accessuk/5/#c7632
Disclaimer: I know there are a few problems with my site, I’m working on it and the content management system.
I have found that management isn’t interested in accessibility. However if you tell them that their search engine rankings will go up, you’ve got their interest.
Danny Morning: “Run Trenton’s site http://www.webcredible.co.uk/ through
the accessibility checker at http://www.webxact.com/
and you’ll find he doesn’t practice what he preaches.”
Quite incorrect. The report generated again demostrates that automated tests are not a reliable way of testing for accessibility. Trenton’s knowledge of accessibility supercedes webxacts report. Take a look at the error webxact is complaining about.
It claims there isn’t an alt attribute on a number of images – that is clearly wrong. The images noted do have an alt attribute.
What webxact is claiming is that the _supplied_ alt text is wrong. These in particular are empty strings. webXact claims this is an error. And it is wrong.
The purpose of the above-mentioned images on the web crucible website is to iconise typical website functionality (a picture of an envelope) – for example contact us. This icon is followed by its textual equivalent – “Contact Us”.
In this particular instance the text that follows does adequately describe the function of the image (Contact Us), so duplicating that text in the alt attribute is just a meaningless redundancy. The correct alt – which Trenton has used – is alt=””.
automated accessility checks are, as others have mentioned, not an accurate measure of true accessibility…just in the same way that, say, the w3c style validator can check if your CSS conforms to the syntax, but can’t check if the resulting layout is actually what the designer intended…
Great point made by Tanny O’Haley (above. Two examples:
Gez at Juicy Studios saw his traffic from search engines increase from 1000 to 6000 visitors after making the website accessible.
Sitepoint had an increase from 250,000 to 1,000,000 monthly visitors after making their website accessible (stylesheets and a whole number of other changes). They also saw their average page size fall from 150k to 60k.
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_wgtmonline.doc
I’m afraid I don’t have Word. This document is inaccessible to me.
😉
Other than that, this is an interesting debate.
It does amaze me the number of designers that don’t “get it”.
In reply to Stuart Lindley assertion that the internet is a visual medium and you need to be able to see to use a computer, I say rubbish.
I’ve worked alongside sightless programmers for a number of years and I can inform you that they are just as adept at using them as anyone else.
It’s quite offensive to claim that these people are somehow less able than you and your eyes to be honest, the only difference is that they do things in a different way.
The internet of a means of disseminating information. This is not something that only “normal” people can digest. Just because you see the world one way does not mean that it can’t be seen another way.
You maybe interested to know that Television, a medium perhaps most associated with “looking” is enjoyed by a number of unsighted people, and certainty a great many people with disabilities get just as much enjoyment out of it as you do, mainly because most people with dissabilities are not infact blind as seems to a comman assumption when accessibility is discussed.
In general if you make an assumption about accessibility, it will probably be wrong. There is no excuse ever for saying “but I’m sure blind/deaf/mobility impaired/other “disability” folks would want to be looking at my site so I’ll just ignore them”. I think you should let them decide that for themselves really.
Foamcow: “I’m afraid I don’t have Word. This document is inaccessible to me.”
although this could degenerate into a free as in speech vs free as in beer discussion, you could install OpenOffice. the wider-ranging argument here would be: should we use proprietary formats (for which, however, readers are freely available), or just stick to pure W3C standards ? according to the Wuh-Kag Clan we should only use W3C technologies, but of course this is what they would have to say, as it’s their guidelines.
just playing devil’s advocate…or am i ?
I run my own website about sport, a fansite which is completly free to view by all. I’m pretty new to web design myself and after 2 years of running the site I’ve now decided to get the site designed professionally.
In my own dabblings I’ve always tried to make the site easy on the eye and accessible by offering altnerate navigation clear menu’s and a decently sized font that most people can comfortably read. In my new site I’ve asked the developer to consider altnerate style sheets also which are being developed.
So I am making an effort to make the site accessable to all but does a free non commercial service also have to comply with these laws?
I would say my site does okay on that score, but faults can surely be found on most websites with some level of professionalism applied, so where is the line drawn? I would imagine that if every site HAD to comply with accessability laws there soon wouldn’t be any sites left, and especially those of us who are new to web design and trying to have a go and improve with each design.
If it is applicable to all there will be no semi-professionals around and considering most are self taught where would that leave the future of web design?
I agree with Patrick, http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/accessuk/6/#c7656
automated tests such as Webxact and Bobby aren’t the be-all-and-end all of accessibility testing.
Trenton and his company seem quite happy thought to quote the automated checking processes of the W3C (X)HTML and CSS
validators when results fall in their favour.
Trenton and Isofarro http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/accessuk/6/#c7654
both point out Webxact incorrectly flags empty alt tags.
What about the 14 examples of only separating adjacent links with whitespace? They definitely aren’t the result of an over-eager parser pointing out non-existant errors.
If you’re selling yourself as an accessibility guru then your own site should be beyond reproach as you’re free from the time and the budget constraints of the paying client.
I keep coming across other designers who dismiss the disabled users as a minority, are an inconvenience and clients are just not interested. Tell them that there are over 8 million people in the UK who could be registered disabled (source RNIB). That’s a big slice of the pie and one that your clients cannot afford to ignore.
The RNIB have also told me that they have good research that disabled users spend more time and more money online – well they would -they are not disabled online. (For all you know I could be severely disabled but I am joining in this discussion on the same level as all of you.)
Since making my own site accessible and conform to a whole range of other standards (thank you Mr Zeldman) I have seen a huge jump in traffic and positioning on search engines… Google is my biggest visitor and it’s blind as a bat…
Darren: “So I am making an effort to make the site accessable to all but does a free non commercial service also have to comply with these laws?”
Any site in the UK offering or purporting to offer a product or service. Whether a payment is attached is irrelevant. So the law isn’t limited to commercial entities and government. Have a look at 19-(2) of the DDA: http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/Ukpga_19950050_en_4.htm#mdiv19
“I would say my site does okay on that score, but faults can surely be found on most websites with some level of professionalism applied, so where is the line drawn?”
I would say the “reasonable adjustments” criteria would be applied. I would expect the reasonable adjustments of an online banking service would be higher than one of a hobby website.
“If it is applicable to all there will be no semi-professionals around and considering most are self taught where would that leave the future of web design?”
Don’t put yourself down. Its very surprising (as well as disappointing) how it is the professional web designers and websites that have the greatest problem grokking the need for accessibility. I’ve found semi-professionals and hobbiest the quickest and eager to understand and implement accessible websites.
Joe Clark himself notes that hobby sites like blogs are far more likely to be accessible and standards compliant than businesses with high-budget websites. And blogs typically get done with a shoestring or non-existant budget.
Danny Morning: “What about the 14 examples of only separating adjacent links with whitespace? They definitely aren’t the result of an over-eager parser pointing out non-existant errors.”
The majority of them are highlighting lines where this problem isn’t occurring – and missing the very lines where it actually is happening. Lifting the view-source of the webcredible.co.uk page – skimming through this shows the problem of adjacent links on line 143-146. And something similar on lines 139 and 140. The rest of the links don’t seem to be – at a cursory glance – adjacent.
“If you’re selling yourself as an accessibility guru then your own site should be beyond reproach as you’re free from the time and the budget constraints of the paying client.”
Quite right. I won’t be surprised to see Trenton correct the legitimate accessibility problems in the near future.
Simon Cox: “I keep coming across other designers who dismiss the disabled users as a minority, are an inconvenience and clients are just not interested. Tell them that there are over 8 million people in the UK who could be registered disabled (source RNIB).”
Not to mention the disabled within the UK have an annual disposable income of 50-60 billion pounds. source: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/content/oneoffs/e-nation2.htm
But, it must be pointed out, the Disability Discrimination Act is legislation _protecting_ the rights of a minority group. Using an argument that there’s not enough disabled people to warrant action to prevent discrimination is nothing short of legal suicide.
Comrades
Trenton’s article sure has sparked some debate! I go back to (and elaborate on) the point I made earlier, designing with accessibility in mind is simply the right thing to do.
Design to me, is form AND function. While developing with standards-based methods does not guarantee accessibility, it goes along way towards making sites *easier* to use for all, (perfect might take a little bit more and is very subjective).
There are many examples of standards-based, accessible sites which stand proud among their aging, non-compliant, non-accessible competitors. Looking only with a browser it is often impossible to tell them apart creatively.
So why would you *not* want your work to be available to as many people as possible? Answers on a (very small) postcard to…
Just thinking it’s a good idea to instate these kinds of laws that cause people to be thoughtful of those who might otherwise get left behind. Certainly, it will be a challenge to conform to the accessability laws, but isn’t that what web design is all about? Isn’t it the conformity to standards that facilitate access to online information what ALA (and other such organizations) is all about?
Some interesting accessibility challenges lie ahead, but they are challenges for the collective electronic comminication community, not just web designers. We cannot control how, saw, a person with no arms will interact with our web sites.
It will be interesting to see what innovations will arise from the accessability challenge.
It’s getting to the point that im going to really think if web design is my occupation of choice, i’d rather stick with print/grpahic design, and leave the troubles to standard compliant designers.
i mean, i already make sure my sites have text only versions, and that they are accessiable, but it’s gettig a bit extreme that designers and companies are getting sued for designing for people with disabilities. I dont see McDonalds cahnging there add compaigns to suit blinde people, and i dont see Sony developing audio devices for the deaf.
There has to be a line drawn because these new laws are getting a bit pathetic.
Steven: “i mean, i already make sure my sites have text only versions”
Text-only versions of websites are not necessarily accessible. There are a number of problems with that approach. See
* http://www.isolani.co.uk/articles/accessibilityOfTextOnlyWebsites.html — Accessibility of text-only websites
* http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/AccessibilityAndContentManagement — Accessibility and Content Management.
Stephen: “it’s gettig a bit extreme that designers and companies are getting sued for designing for people with disabilities. I dont see McDonalds cahnging there add compaigns to suit blinde people, and i dont see Sony developing audio devices for the deaf.”
The web was designed to be an accessible medium – it is not limited to a visual-only medium. It doesn’t have the limitations of audio. It doesn’t have the limitations of print. To suggest that web accessibility should be ignored because deaf people can’t hear audio devices is ridiculous.
I wonder how you would feel when you lose your sight (old age will do that to you), and are prevented from doing the simplest of things – not because you aren’t capable of doing so – but because some “web designer” insists you must be incapable of doing so.
Both Bobby and WebXact get this wrong – they interpret WCAG too strictly. Cynthia Says reports on the errors more sensibly.
Watchfire themselves have said that this check is based on the WCAG guideline that states “Until user agents are able to render adjacent links distinctly…” or something along those lines, unfortunately there is no mechanism to define a time wher user agents *are* able to render them distinctly, even though in reality there are no such user agents.
Is anyone aware of any user agents that present two links that are in separate divisions, and paragraphs with whitespace in between, as one link?
WebXact is too strict in that it requires a space and a non-space printable character between all links, not only does that mess up formatting but in reality makes pages *less* accessible to speech browsers etc as all the separator characters will be read out. “vertical bar”, “period”, “forward slash” etc.
I set up a test page with two pairs of links. The first pair ran into each other and you couldn’t tell that there were two links there, but Bobby passed this.
The second pair were on two distinct lines, but Bobby failed this.
Conclusion: use your common sense when validating your pages for accessibility. Do not rely completely on automated validators as they all have bugs and their behaviour is up to the whim of the individual company anyway.
Unfortunately, if it comes to law, what validator will be used?
Hi
the DRC report and a webcast is now available at
http://www.drc-gb.org/webcast/live_subtitles.asp?type=3
Just think about what you are saying for a moment. Basically your point is that it’s getting a bit pathetic that we try and let people actually read our sites. This is a most bizarre point of view. There are millions of people out there who your writing off cause you can’t be bothered to understand the new guidelines.
If for some reason you lost the use of your legs and were unable to use any public transport, go to restaurants, cinemas, shops all because some architect though it a bit pathetic that we build wheelchair ramps cause they ruined the “look” of his building you, i imagine, would be a bit miffed. Yet this is identical to what you are saying.
Comrades
The UK Disability Rights Commission today published their long awaited report into UK web accessibility issues.
http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/report.asp
Other coverage of the report is available from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3623407.stm) at Accessify Forum (http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1134), and on Isofarro’s excellent site (http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/DrcReportOnUkWebAccessibility)
PS: Ed, can you install comment previews please?
Steven: “It’s getting to the point that im going to really think if web design is my occupation of choice, i’d rather stick with print/grpahic design, and leave the troubles to standard compliant designers.”
if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the incinerator. so what you’re saying is “it used to be fun to do websites, but now there’s all these rules i need to follow and i don’t like it anymore” ? well, web design is a craft. it’s good that people are slowly realising that there’s more to web design than just owning a copy of DWMX and putting nice looking pictures up. usability, accessibility, information architecture…all these “extra” things that are part of web design and are often just not seen. sure, it’s not easy for a novice to pick all these things up…
it’s the same with architecture: sure, you could design amazing buildings, but if you don’t consider the need of visitors and users with disabilities, you’ll fall foul of legislation.
“I dont see McDonalds cahnging there add compaigns to suit blinde people”
why do you think an advertising campaign needs to be changed to suit blind people ? what, should they just have a black screen with descriptive dialogue…”i’m blind and i’m loving the new McBlindBurger” ? their advertising campaign works fine BECAUSE it’s been designed with various target audiences in mind. the importantn information on a TV ad, for instance, is given both visually and aurally (this latter part also because advertisers want to reach those people who have a TV running, but are in another room at the time and can only hear the audio).
McD also have radio campaigns running, which by definition will work for both visually impaired and normally sighted listeners alike. again, no problem there.
Their site, however, falls foul of DDA requirements (ironically, they do have an HTML version, but the button to access the HTML version is embedded inside the flash…duh!)…I’ve emailed them about it, let’s see what they come back with (their HTML site is actually not too bad, once you get to it…looked at it via Lynx without any major problems)
“and i dont see Sony developing audio devices for the deaf.”
there is, of course, a “reasonable” clause built into the legislation that most people, in their vain knee-jerk reaction, fail to see. just the same way that the law can’t be used to force a dental practice to employ a completely blind dentist, for instance, developing audio devices for the deaf falls outside of the reasonable area.
having said that, Sony is, if memory serves me right, actively involved in various research projects – as are other major manufacturers – to produce assistive technologies for the deaf and hard of hearing, amongs others…
Mentioning disabilities in a discussion about accessibility of the web has its advantages and disadvantages. The major advantage is that people generally have a pro-accessibility opinion when it comes to the disabled, either because they think the disabled deserve extra protection, or because they feel sorry for them.
The major disadvantage is that it narrows the scope of the subject. Accessibility also means letting the Google webcrawlers visit your site, so that it gets indexed and preferably ranked as high as possible. It also means that that high-paid executive surfing his phone for the designer who’s going to build his next multi-million dollar website is able to find out your address.
The web is a text medium. As such, it is intrinsically accessible to anyone who understands text. That’s a good thing. The fact that we abstract from physical properties makes the web an immensely powerful means of communication, because we can now translate our message to any physical medium we like. And this freedom of choosing your physical medium is what’s called ‘accessibility’; it comes free with the web.
And here’s something funny that a lot of designers seem to forget: building an inaccessible website costs more money. Simply because the web is built on accessible technology, making a site inaccessible takes extra work.
Somebody mentioned that amateurs are more likely to get accessibility right, despite that they’re on a shoestring budget. I would like to argue that they get it right, BECAUSE they are on a shoestring budget. They just don’t have the time or the money to ruin a perfectly accessible site.
Real designers work with the medium, not against it. Unfortunately, this (our) medium is often misunderstood by its designers.
A McDonald’s advertising campaign might not be accessible to someone who is blind, but a restaurant would have to have a ramp to make *the service* accessible to someone in a wheelchair. Equally, their staff would have to make a ‘reasonable adjustment’ for someone who was blind. This might not be providing a Braille menu (certainly not at short notice) but might, for example, entail a staff member being prepared to describe what is on it.
What I don’t get is this. What do you (the complainers) want to do on your websites that couldn’t be accessible with proper care and thought?
Someone said ‘Individuals and companies should be free to choose their own design standards and guidelines.’ Well, fair enough, but the trouble is they DON’T. I cannot understand why anyone is against websites being accessible? If you lost your site tomorrow (which is entirely possible) would you suddenly abandon the Internet?
Also, and this is something people haven’t mentioned, NOTHING annoys me more than getting emails from reputable companies (having given them permission to contact me) that are done in inaccessible HTML. Why? I mean, it really isn’t that difficult.
I meant ‘lose your sight’, not ‘site’. Freudian slip ;-0
Perhaps one day everyone who couldn’t access your site will form a class-action lawsuit against you? Then you’re screwed.
I wish we had this:
@page {
accessibiltiy: auto;
}
Please be careful quoting any organization’s statistics. The source said, “could be registered disabled” in the sentence, not that there are 8 million people in the UK who are disabled. Many times organizations will “cook” the numbers because they have a “greater good” in mind. I don’t know if this is the case with this number, but they did say “could”.
You should make your web sites accessible because its the right thing to do. It is a moral choice to do the right thing.
It is a good start, hopefully this will result in a more accessible web. In the olddays the web was accessible. Bring back the good old days.
There is something about all this that I am struggling to put my finger on. I guess I also need to find time to go and read all the references on accessability as they might help. Just what constitutes an in accessable website? i.e. what should I as a potential web designer avoid? Based on this discussion I’m left with a confused and subjective impression. Over here in the land of the lawsuit [US] subjectivity is a boon to those in a position to hire a lawyer who is “smart” enough to out argue the defense. “Frivolous” law suits and this kind of lawyer is one of the reasons the legal profession is so hated in the US and also one of the reasons why it is so wealthy.
What if I want to display the image of a flower on my website. What am i to provide as a text alternative? What if that image happens to be the company logo? will do or do I have to be more discriptive or does a lawsuit charging me with failing to provide a 3 page essay describing the design, history and feelings the flower logo is designed to provoke, fall outside the reasonable clause?
The example of adverts has been used. Advertisers often “discriminate” and target a very specific audience. I am I right to be offended and sue because an advertiser uses flashing images and a heavy-metal sound track which happens to trigger my epilepsy, as well as my musical taste, instead of using a calm image and a Classical sound track. There may be some services which by their nature are outside the scope of a given disability. (c.f. the Dentist example). What to do if I want to add a Quicktime video showing an animated CAD model to illustrate my Architectural services, specifically showing shadows thrown by the sun over a 24 hour period? Corecte me if I’m wrong but this is something of value to a person with capability to veiw the video and is targeted at that audience only. Trying to empathise I don’t think I would like to be reminded about my disability at every turn, “hey here’s another image of a house you can’t see.gif” or “here’s another sound track you can’t hear.wma”. Actually the last example applies to me already at work as my employer provided PC has no sound card.
Don’t get me wrong I am all for those not quite as blessed as myself enjoying life to the fullest possible but there are limits. I’m never going to be able to live in Buckingham Palace. I am never going to be able to perform secure internet transactions at my bank on my Atari 520ST. Isn’t it discrimination to block those limited, as many disabled are, to older hardware and software? I also experience similar discrimination at home accessing sites requiring IE 5.5 or above, unavailable for all versions of the Mac OS (my prefered OS).
Limited or no sight require plain text, dyslexic require stimulating graphics, hearing impared require none audio, and Mac users require Saffari, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, Omniweb, Camino, iCab compatibility etc.
I’m sure all kinds of examples can be raised and disected but the point is what is the spirit of the law here. What lengths does one have to go to provide relavent content? What obligation are you under if you choose to target part of your “readership” and provide an ambient background soundtrack to help sooth them as they make their purchacing choices?
The concern is not so much for the Nanny State, though I suspect the Nanny State is self made (“oh the g’vt will take care of it I don’t have to”), as much as for the greedy lawyer and his equally greedy client.
Sorry for the ramble I’m kind of thinking “aloud”
T A: “I guess I also need to find time to go and read all the references on accessability as they might help.”
All the questions you have raised are adequately covered by the following documents:
* DDA Part III: http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/Ukpga_19950050_en_4.htm
* ADA: http://www.access-board.gov/about/ADA%20Text.htm
* WCAG1.0: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
* WCAG1.0 Techniques: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/
* Joe Clark’s book: http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/
T A: “Just what constitutes an in accessable website?”
One that doesn’t prevent a disabled person from getting the same information and functionality as that of a non-disabled person. Joe Clark has a lucid definition of accessibility: “Accessibility involves making allowances for characteristics a person cannot readily change.”
T A: “What if I want to display the image of a flower on my website.”
WCAG Checkpoint 1.1
T A: “I am I right to be offended and sue because an advertiser uses flashing images and a heavy-metal sound track which happens to trigger my epilepsy,”
WCAG Checkpoints 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3. Your taste in music is probably not a disability.
T A: “What to do if I want to add a Quicktime video showing an animated CAD model to illustrate my Architectural services, specifically showing shadows thrown by the sun over a 24 hour period?”
What pertinant information is that going to give the visitor?
T A: “Isn’t it discrimination to block those limited, as many disabled are, to older hardware and software?”
This is covered in the DRC report released on Wednesday: http://joeclark.org/dossiers/DRC-GB.html?IG
T A: “I also experience similar discrimination at home accessing sites requiring IE 5.5 or above, unavailable for all versions of the Mac OS (my prefered OS).”
Using a Mac isn’t a disability, so it is not covered by disability focused legislation.
However, an accessible website is more likely to be usable on Mac browsers, so you actually can benefit from accessible websites.
“I’m sure all kinds of examples can be raised and disected but the point is what is the spirit of the law here.”
The spirit is to protect the rights of disabled people. They have as much right as you to participate in society (in this case an online society).
“I dont see McDonalds cahnging there add compaigns to suit blinde people, and i dont see Sony developing audio devices for the deaf.”
Newsflash: Deaf people can’t hear anyway. Blind people can’t see. Common sense, kid.
Nobody says you have to provide *only* 100% accessible content. But if your content is only provided in a potentially inaccessible medium (like a picture of text, instead of plain text), you *are* creating a problem if you don’t provide some sort of backup.
Personally, I think it sounds like a giant opportunity for people with disabilities to make lots of money with questionable lawsuits. Sure there are lots of disabled people who just want to use the web, but i’m sure there are also people who like with other laws are just waiting to exploit these laws. Whats to stop those people; with the millions of web sites i’m sure they wont have any trouble finding a few or a thousand websites that don’t cater to their disablity.
I always ensure that my HTML sites are accessible. But I sometimes build sites in Flash when I perceive that it is appropriate for the target market (eg photographer’s portfolios, for certain fashion brands, rock band and movie websites). Should I always provide an HTML alternative, or can Flash be made *legally* accessible? I’m also not sure how to go about making some Flash content accessible (video, audio, animation?) in any meaningful way. Anyone else dealing with these issues?
Regarding lawsuits I have better things to do, than complain about lack of accessibility.
It depends upon what level of accessibility you are aiming towards but essentially with Flash, you’d probably be using the object element. When using object you should provide a fallback mechanism as defined in the Technical Recommendations, for example a hyperlink to an alterative version.
Albeit if you have a Flash only navigation system and my user-agent does not have the proprietary Macromedia plugin then you would possibly be discriminating against the user and user-agent respectively.
Tommy Olsson puts it rather nicely; “To avoid creating unnecessary impediments, for people and devices, to accessing the web site’s content.”
So long as the core information of the site is, where applicable, available in other ways you should be OK.
As per your example…
You obviously can’t show the photographers portfolio to the blind, but you CAN make sure that the photographer’s contact information is available for a screen reader.
Perhaps the DRC should follow its own advice. A quick accessibility check in Acrobat 6 Professional of the PDF version of the DRC report found that the report iself isn’t accessible to people with disabilities. In the “Easy Read Summary” PDF of the report the document is not XML structured, has no specified language, and all 17 images are missing alternative text—so the vision impaired know they’re missing some of the content, but have no idea what it is.
The full report, though it contains no images, is even worse. Again, no language is specified, 120 words are inaccessible because they contain no reliable Unicode mapping, and the document is unstructured.
Reference:
http://magazinedesign.weblogsinc.com/entry/3239236368168881/
http://www.iampariah.com/blog/archives/000360.html
To clarify a few points.
Websites should be accessible for disabled users (ie Blind is just one type of disability).
“Accessibility” & the goldrush – check out how many “experts” have been in design for more than 1 year.
Most laws have been based on guidelines – not set in stone and are open to legal interpretation.
Almost everyone has mentioned validation, css etc – how many have asked at least one disabled peron to review a site AND paid a professional fee fro that review.
We designed and invested in BlindRadio.com to be accessible – it works and it does not meet AAA.
oh…We’ve been designing products for about 20 years and are still not “experts”
To clarify a few points.
Websites should be accessible for disabled users (ie Blind is just one type of disability).
“Accessibility” & the goldrush – check out how many “experts” have been in design for more than 1 year.
Most laws have been based on guidelines – not set in stone and are open to legal interpretation.
Almost everyone has mentioned validation, css etc – how many have asked at least one disabled peron to review a site AND paid a professional fee for that review.
We designed and invested in BlindRadio.com to be accessible – it works and it does not meet AAA.
oh…We’ve been designing products for about 20 years and are still not “experts”
1)
Section 1.4 of the Code clearly states “The Code does not impose legal obligations.
Nor is it an authoritative statement of the
law – that is a matter for the courts.”
A Code has a distinctly different legal meaning than a Law – it is NOT a law.
2)
The phrase “reasonable adjustments” does not define reasonable – this may be a very decisive factor in cases.
It often indicates the “relative cost” – what is reasonable for a large business could be very expensive for a small business.
Equally “reasonable” must take into account “fit for purpose” – the concept that a product is designed for its users and not for everybody – as practical examples, a printed newspaper is designed to be read by a sighted person – a music CD is not designed for the deaf.
As technology develops, “reasonable” increases in scope but we have to stop running around like headless chickens and scaremongering. That will end in negative publicity for “accessability” and defeat the good work being done to open up the web to a larger audience.
I’d like to see more sites that aren’t with white backgrounds – working in a low lighting area, staring at a bright screen trying to pick out dark text is nearly as efficient as staring at the sun.
That’s not just about accessibility, but about common sense.
About 8 years ago, while studying IT at college in the UK, I lost the vision in both my eyes temporarily, regaining 1 eyes perfect site a month later. The other however has severe vision problems, i have about 5% vision in the left eye with a very big problem with lights sensitivity. The web for me is a daily battle with headaches and eyestrain, caused by high contrast and small text.
This however did not stop me going to university to study multimedia design, nor did hinder my chances of getting a job with a UK design firm. Another member of our design team is colour blind and is one of the better designers I know.
Disability is perceived as being a hindrance, it is not. The disabled are not unable, just less able and to provide aid IS the right thing to do.
Ask Daniel Brown whether he will be continuing his career after the accident that left him disabled, I don’t assume he will say “No the web wasn’t made for me to use”