Guidance on how to develop a website which is
user-friendly for disabled people has been launched
today.
The guidance has been issued following an investigation by the
Disability Rights Commission (DRC), which revealed that 81% of UK
websites are inaccessible to disabled people.
The guidance document, Publicly Available Specification (PAS)
78, has been developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI)
and is sponsored by the DRC.
The PAS 78 guide is applicable to all organisations and is
intended for use by those responsible for commissioning or
maintaining public-facing websites and web-based services.
The document covers six key areas: the accessible website
process, from commissioning to building a site; accessibility
policies; what web accessibility guidelines mean; involvement of
disabled people; compliance checking; and additional useful
accessibility provisions.
Since 1999, website owners have had a legal duty under the
Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to ensure that services
provided via the web are accessible to disabled people, who number
some 10 million people in the UK.
Bert Massie, chairman of the DRC said, “Businesses and the web
industry have a responsibility to ensure the web is barrier-free to
disabled people. It also makes good business sense.
“An accessible website is easier for both disabled and
non-disabled people to use, and is bound to attract more
customers,” he said.