Web accessibility and the law in the UK: Is Your Website Legal?

Written by Trenton Moss


Continued from page 1

“One ofrepparttar biggest myths aboutrepparttar 118740 law,” continues Mr. Moss, “is thatrepparttar 118741 new laws will be implemented in October of this year, whenrepparttar 118742 final part ofrepparttar 118743 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 torepparttar 118744 Internet in any way. (http://www.disability.gov.uk/dda/#part3).

The law about accessible websites came into force on 1st October 1999 (http://www.drc.org.uk/open4all/law/code.asp) andrepparttar 118745 Code of Practice for this section ofrepparttar 118746 Act was published on 27th May 2002 (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2002/20020720.htm). This means thatrepparttar 118747 majority of websites are already in breach ofrepparttar 118748 law.

So, can you be sued if your website fails to meetrepparttar 118749 required standards? “Probably,” says Mr. Moss. The RNIB claim that they have considered taking up a number of cases against organisations with regard to their websites. When they raisedrepparttar 118750 accessibility issues ofrepparttar 118751 website, companies have typically maderepparttar 118752 necessary changes, rather than facingrepparttar 118753 prospect of legal action.

The DRC has launched a formal investigation into 1000 websites and expect to publish their findings some time this year. (http://www.drc-gb.org/annualreview/foreword/index.asp#internet). If your website is on this list then you will have to start thinking about making it accessible to all web users inrepparttar 118754 very near future.

So what does your website need to do to comply torepparttar 118755 standards? It is widely believed that if, or perhaps more appropriately when, a case makes it to court thatrepparttar 118756 W3C accessibility guidelines will be used to assess a website’s accessibility and ultimately deciderepparttar 118757 outcome ofrepparttar 118758 case. The W3C isrepparttar 118759 Internet governing body and its web accessibility guidelines can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html. To further complicate matters,repparttar 118760 W3C offers three different levels of compliance; it will most likely berepparttar 118761 Priority 2 guidelines, (which must be satisfied according torepparttar 118762 W3C) that will probably need to be adhered to.

This article was written by Trenton Moss of Webcredible (Http://www.webcredible.co.uk), the user-friendly website experts. Find articles and tutorials about web usability, web accessibility, web credibility, search engine optimisation and CSS in the extensive web development resources (http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/) area of their website.


Benefits of making your website accessible to disabled users – part 2: the business case

Written by Trenton Moss


Continued from page 1

4. You will not have to incur legal fees The RNIB (Royal National Institute forrepparttar Blind) andrepparttar 118739 DRC (Disability Rights Commission) have been exerting pressure on companies andrepparttar 118740 government to make their websites accessible. Indeed,repparttar 118741 DRC is currently investigating 1,000 websites for accessibility (http://www.drc-gb.org/annualreview/foreword/index.asp#internet). If your organisation’s website is on this list then you can expect to be hearing from them soon.

5. The download time of your website will be significantly improved Just 17% of web users are connected torepparttar 118742 Internet via broadband (www.liquidzope.com/abc/2/4currentusage/currentstatebbd/view). You can be sure that if your website takes much longer than ten seconds to download then many of your site visitors will be clicking away and you will lose their custom.

6. The usability of your website will be enhanced There is a certain amount of overlap between web accessibility and web usability. It has been shown that a usability redesign increasesrepparttar 118743 sales/conversion rate of a website by 100% (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030107.html).

7. You will gain good publicity Make your website accessible to everyone and you can tellrepparttar 118744 world about it.

This article was written by Trenton Moss of Webcredible (http://www.webcredible.co.uk), the user-friendly website experts. Find articles and tutorials about web usability, web accessibility, web credibility, search engine optimisation and CSS in the extensive web development resources (http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/) area of their website.


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