Website powered by
Site System™ by
Sinclair Design
complies with the Disability Discrimination Act
what the DDA says about websites...
The government and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) have produced a Code of Practice that says this about Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and how it relates to websites:
"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 the public..." (pg7)
"From 1st October 1999, a service provider has had to take reasonable steps to change a practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services..." (pg39)
"What services are affected by Part III of the Act? ...An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the Act." (pg13)
"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." (pg71)
"For people with hearing disabilities, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ... accessible websites." (pg68)
This means that you can now be prosecuted if you operate a website that is not accessible (easy to use) for disabled people.
In 2004, the DRC published the findings of a formal investigation into 1,000 website home pages, of which 81% "...have characteristics that make it very difficult, if not impossible, for people with certain impairments, especially those who are blind, to make use of the services provided."
The DRC subsequently issued a stern warning that organisations will face legal action under the DDA and unlimited compensation payments if they fail to make websites accessible for people with disabilities.
So far the DRC has been taking educational steps to correct the situation but as with most wide-reaching legislation, it is only a matter of time before it starts carrying out its threats. When this happens, it is almost certain that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility guidelines will be used by the courts to assess a website's accessibility.
The W3C offers three levels of accessibility compliance. Priority 1 checkpoints must be satisfied according to the W3C. Priority 2 checkpoints should be satisfied (and are the EU recommended level of compliance). Priority 3 checkpoints may be satisfied. It therefore follows that the W3C's Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints will be the required DDA compliance standard.
Although the UK currently seems to be in a period of grace from prosecution, other countries are pushing the issue. In 2000, a blind Australian man successfully sued the Sydney Olympics organising committee over their inaccessible website (the Australian Disability Discrimination Act closely resembles the UK's), and in New York, Ramada.com and Priceline.com were also both successfully sued over the accessibility of their websites.
Apart from an easily understandable, consistent navigation system and the facility to add 'alt' text to every uploaded image, the following standard features ensure that Site System 2 websites are highly accessible for the disabled:
Semantic CSS layout
Text resizing selector
High contrast stylesheet
Semantic CSS layout
Using standards-compliant, semantically correct XHTML and CSS to separate content from presentation is technically difficult and very time-consuming, but it brings many advantages, as explained in this web presentation (click here), one of the most important being that the information within the site can be easily accessed and understood by people that use screen readers or text-based browsers. To see how the underlying text for this web page is structured, simply disable the styles from within your browser.
Notice how the navigation menu appears first as an indented list (with a 'skip link' for screen readers), followed by the main page content which is logically structured with semantically correct section headers. This is exactly how someone using a screen reader will want to 'see' the page, and yet so many websites still use tables for layout, creating major problems for blind visitors.
Text resizing selector
Every Site System 2 website features a text sizing tool that allows visitors to pick the best size to suit their standard of vision. Although the text on most websites can be scaled using browser tools, the layout of most sites breaks up with large text, rendering the sites unusable. The tool on this system is unique in that it scales up different types of text at different rates, so that you don't end up with HUGE headlines just because you prefer larger body text. Notice also that the width of the entire site increases to make room for the larger top navigation links. These are cutting-edge accessibility features.
High contrast stylesheet
Every Site System 2 website features a selectable alternative stylesheet to assist visitors with a variety of sight impediments and/or cognitive disabilities and/or very slow connections.
The alternative page is high in contrast and does not discriminate against colour-blind users. The navigation elements are also bold and simplified for those with cognitive impairments and/or learning difficulties, and the page as a whole will load even quicker than normal due to the reduction of image files. As with the text feature above, you saw it here first! 