Companies should treat the UK's first case brought under
the Disability Discrimination Act as a wake-up call, lawyers have
said.
Last week, the Royal National Institute for the Blind confirmed
that it is supporting a number of individuals in cases against
companies which are failing to make websites available to visually
impaired users.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act, passed in 1995, all
organisations are required to make reasonable adjustments to their
systems to allow people with disabilities to access them. The Act
makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in
employment and in the provision of goods, services, facilities and
premises.
Suzanne Mercer, a partner in IT and e-commerce practice at law firm
Eversheds, said litigation has already been successful in the US
and Australia and was inevitable in the UK. She warned companies to
address the issue.
"Litigation will particularly apply when people who cannot use
websites are excluded from financial incentives, such as when
low-cost airlines offer cheaper flights online rather than over the
phone," she said.
The RNIB said it could not release details of the action as it is
at an early stage, but said there are steps companies should take
to avoid similar problems.
For example, said Margaret O'Donnell, website manager at the RNIB,
companies need to put pressure on their software suppliers to
ensure they are addressing accessibility issues.
"A lot of web designers still do not know a lot about
accessibility, which you cannot get with out-of-the-box software
products.
"We heavily customised [our website software] as nobody had really
done anything in this way before. It is also important to keep the
pressure on moving forward."
Online accessibility for disabled, deaf and visually impaired users
has come under the spotlight in recent months since the Disability
Rights Commission began an investigation into 1,000 UK sites.
A separate survey of 1,000 government websites by the Office of the
E-Envoy revealed that three-quarters of the sites needed rebuilding
for accessibility rights at a cost of millions of pounds.
Access guidelines
The World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative
guidelines are the global standard. See Authoring Tools
Accessibility Guidelines for software developers
www.w3.org/WAI
The Office of the E-envoy has published the Guidelines for UK
Government Websites and an illustrated handbook for web development
teams ww.e-envoy.gov.uk
Systems built to international guidelines can be tested online by
the Bobby service, developed by the Centre for Assistive Technology
in the US
http://bobby.watchfire.com
UK Online's Easy Access system is intended to be used by government
webmasters
www.ukonline.gov.uk