Warwickshire
and
(Affiliated to
the National Association of Local Councils)
25, Stoneleigh Deer Park, Stareton, Kenilworth ,
Warwickshire CV8 2LY
Tel: 02476 217349 Fax: 02476 419959 E-mail: walc@walc.org.uk www.walc.org.uk
Guide
on How to Build Accessible Websites
Key guidance on how to develop a website which is user-friendly for
disabled people has been launched.
Following an investigation by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC)
which revealed that 81% of British websites are inaccessible to disabled
people, the guidance document, Publicly Available Specification or PAS 78, was developed by the British
Standards Institution (BSI) and sponsored by the DRC.
PAS 78 – Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites – is
applicable to all organisations and is intended for use by those responsible
for commissioning or maintaining public-facing websites and web-based services.
The document covers six key areas:
The Accessible website process – guidance on building an accessible
website from commissioning and developing it through to publishing and
maintaining it. This section also
includes guidance on contracting web design and accessibility auditing
services.
Accessibility policy – its importance and how to define this for the
website
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines – their importance in the
context of accessibility issues, what they mean and which ones to follow
Involvement of disabled people – in the requirements gathering,
conceptual design and testing processes
Conformance checking – guidance on adhering to it
There are many benefits to using PAS 78 and some of these include:
compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), the creation of
accessible websites, wider audience reach, improvement of search engine
listings due to accessible content and the easy transfer of this content to
other media such as interactive TV or mobile phones.
Details on the PAS 78 launch event can be found at www.bsi-global.com/PAS78
The DRC report “The Web: Access and Inclusion for Disabled People” was
published in April 2004. It investigated
the accessibility of 1,000 British websites and revealed that 81% of websites
(808 out of 1,000) failed to meet minimum standards for disabled web
access. The survey also found that the
average home page contains 108 barriers that make it impossible or very
difficult for disabled people to use it.
June 2006