Standards and Accessibility

Standards

There is a body called the World Wide Web Consortium which defines standards for web sites. Its mission is

To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.

Great idea and not an easy job. Making everything work together in a consistent way across all the companies that produce different computers with different operating systems, different browsers and different software applications will never be straightforward. However, it is vitally important if your web site is to be seen in exactly the same way on a PC running Windows XP with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 as on an Apple Mac running OS X using the Safari browser. Of course there are millions of possible combinations of hardware, operating systems, other software and browsers and it is impossible for anyone to test every combination. The only way consistency can be achieved is through standards.

This is why all the web sites I design and build conform to the W3C XHTML coding standards (XHTML 1.0 strict).

However, W3C don't stop there. They want to make web sites easier to use, quicker to load, more easily changed etc. Much of this comes about through a standard called CSS. CSS is so important that there's a page on this site dedicated to it (CSS).

Accessibility

The CSS standard goes a long way towards providing the ability to make web sites more accessible to people who have a variety of disabilities as you will have seen on the CSS page. AND there is lots more that can be done. Here are some examples

• Use colour combinations that are suitable for people with the various types of 'colour blindness'
• Arrange the content behind the scenes so that the most important material is shown first
• Allow people who use screen readers to read out web pages, to skip over navigation menus to content directly
• Allow navigation using the keyboard as well as mouse

The DDA states in section 21 (1)

Where a provider of services has a practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled persons to make use of a service which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to other members of the public, it is his duty to take such steps as it is reasonable, in all the circumstances of the case, for him to have to take in order to change that practice, policy or procedure so that it no longer has that effect.

The DDA Code of Practice goes on to say that

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.'

The W3C publishes Web Content Accessibility Guidelines which gives advice to web developers as to how to design and build web sites for maximum accessibility. There are 3 levels of compliance. Level 1 is essential. The EU has recommended that all European Institutes and member state governments conform, in addition, with level 2. Level 3 is the maximum level of compliance.

Can you be sued if your web site doesn't conform to the requirements of the DDA ? Theoretically, yes. Some large companies whose sites did not conform have been approached and have changed their sites rather than face the negative publicity of court action. It is likely that large companies offering a service to a wide audience will be targeted first. However, it makes good business sense to me to provide a web site of maximum usability. Why would you want to have a web site that some of your potential customers could not access or who could only do so with difficulty ??

I am working towards making the web sites I produce conformant with at level 2 of the W3C guidelines as a minimum.

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