BIOS: Technology Means Business

With over 80 per cent of the UK’s Web sites falling short of required standards for disabled access, organisations are being asked to make changes sooner rather than later in order to meet their accessibility obligations. Laid down in law under the Disability Discrimination Act since 1999, inclusive Web site accessibility is increasingly a major issue for the UK’s 10 million disabled people.

Recent guidance from the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) has begun to create more awareness and a much needed sense of urgency. Yet, demand for the experience and skills required to effectively implement changes to design and content is likely to be at a premium, as effective accessibility is much more than remedial window dressing. Organisations also need to realise that their access obligations are permanent, so rather than opting for a one-off accessibility ‘makeover’, they need to adopt a fresh approach to content management.

The DRC guidance is in the form of a specification called PAS 78 which has been developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and sponsored by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC). PAS 78 has been designed to be beneficial in a number of ways, not least the fact that following it ensures compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

In recent time more emphasis has been placed on certification rather than enforcement, and cases ending in orders to force companies to publish Web sites that are accessible are incredibly rare. However, there is much speculation over the fact that it is just a matter of time before a court case is won against a company providing inaccessible Web sites. Until such an event takes place, it is unlikely we will see a ubiquitous acceptance of the need to include accessibility in the general design of most Web sites.

Yet, from a business point of view, proper accessibility fully opens up the disabled market, which is estimated to have an enormous collective spending power of some £80bn per annum. Given that the vast majority of Web sites are still inaccessible to disabled users, adopting PAS 78 guidance sooner rather than later offers enlightened businesses a real competitive advantage.

The majority of current Web sites suffer from a range of accessibility shortcomings, both practical and technical. Despite the Internet being designed from the beginning to be accessible, most Web development has ignored the need to generate code that complies with accessibility guidance such as that from W3C. Added to this, contemporary Web sites are very heavily influenced by designers who favour commercially attractive visuals ahead of other considerations such as the needs of disabled users. Too often the need to provide totally design-led, ‘cool’ sites with heavy use of Flash and artistic images outweigh accessibility needs completely.

From a technology perspective, a lack of authoring tools to generate Web pages that comply with accessibility standards has not helped organisations make progress, even when they have been interested in doing so. Until recently the guidance that has been available has been poorly understood, doing little to motivate or assist. Going forward the climate for change is more acceptable with the emergence of certificates, methods, and best practices, all of which will help a great deal.

A major barrier to change has been the concern that embracing a Web development policy that delivers accessibility is going to be expensive. In reality, the major investment is actually more educational than the financial considerations of buying the right technology to support accessibility. Creating an accessible Web site is not where the challenge lies - maintenance and updates are the real issue and are likely to be where site owners fall down over the longer term.

This is particularly relevant for organisations with very dynamic Web sites that are likely to change or be updated on a regular basis. A one-off approach to accessibility could well provide sufficient functionality in the short term, but this will quickly degrade as changes are made and content is added or removed.

It’s important to understand the benefits that can result from making sure Web sites comply with accessibility standards. The positive aspects go well beyond making it accessible to disabled people, and include many benefits such as improved search engine optimisation. For those that want to take their existing Web sites and make them accessible, one key consideration is the overall size and scope of the sites under their control. The more content there is to manage, the bigger the investment can be unless technology is adopted that is specifically aimed at managing large or multiple Web sites.

For larger businesses with complex and wide reaching Web sites, the more content which exists the bigger the challenge in making everything accessible (from the navigation to the content). The biggest issue is figuring out how to do this in a fast and economical way. Enterprise Content Management tools, and especially Web Content Management, are helpful in this.

For example, one very common challenge comes when certain content is repeated in different pages of a Web site, or across multiple Web sites a company might be serving. Rather than having to make the change page by page, line by line, Web Content Management technology allows site managers to make the change to the content just once. Once changed, the effect will ripple down to all pages across all sites where that content is used. There are a small handful of best-of-breed Web Content Management systems that will go much further, helping authors and designers with messages, warnings, and even hints so that the presentation templates and content used across all Web sites comply with accessibility standards.

Once a business has made changes to its Web site, it should be in a position to seek certification to recognise that the relevant methods have been followed and the published Web sites comply with certain accessibility standards. More importantly, checks can be done further on in time to ensure each site remains compliant and certification can be generally displayed on the site to indicate to users that a high level of accessibility is being provided.

In order to maintain a high level of accessibility into the future, organisations should select the standards and methods that best comply with their own situation, but also monitor and check what others are doing to achieve the highest standards in accessibility. There are a number of organisations winning Web accessibility awards, such as the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council - learning from examples such as this is a good way to see how the standards are being set, and with the combined influences of regulation and education, should help improve the Web landscape for disabled users across the board.