He has a point. The RNIB (Royal National Institute for Blind) and DRC (Disability Rights Commission), two of most renowned advocates for creating accessible websites, have no specific information about laws and what websites specifically need to do in order to meet legal requirements.

So, what does law state? Part III of Disability Discrimination Act refers to provision of goods, facilities and services. The Code of Practice, which specifically mentions websites, can be downloaded in its entirety from DRC website (http://www.drc.org.uk/open4all/law/Code%20of%20Practice.pdf 676kb).

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 public.”

4.7 (p39): “From 1st October 1999 a service provider has had 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 Act? An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to act.”

5.23 (p71): “For people with visual impairments, range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ... accessible websites.”

Some organisations are changing to their websites, but many are seemingly not making adjustments. Disabled people don’t access their website, they say, so why should they care?

There are, however, two very good reasons as to why businesses should start taking these issues seriously:

1.An accessible website will make you more money 2.An accessible website will save you money

There are seven reasons for this being applicable:

1. Your website will be easier to manage An accessible website separates content (the words and images that we see on screen) and presentation (the way that these words and images are laid out) of each page. Each web page has an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document, which contains words and images for that page (the content), and calls up a CSS (Cascading StyleSheets) document that includes presentation information – this CSS document is shared by all pages on website. To adjust layout of your website, you only have to make changes in one file, saving considerable time (and therefore money).

2. Your website will be compatible with new browsing technologies In near future, use of PDAs, mobile phones and in-car browsers will all regularly be used to access Internet. The people making use of these new technologies are generally high-income individuals. In order to reach this lucrative target, you will need a website that can work on these machines. To test your website, try accessing it on Wapalizer, a free program available at http://www.gelon.net, which shows how your site will look on a mobile phone.