The law
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was introduced to tackle discrimination of disabled people and from 1999 website owners were legally obliged to make their sites accessible. Websites used in education are further controlled by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) which states that students should not be treated less favourably due to their disability.
Why should I worry about this?
You could be sued if a disabled person makes a claim of discrimination. So far no cases have come to court in the UK. However, there was a case in Australia concerning the website of the Sydney Olympics in which the owners of the site were found to be at fault and forced to pay substantial damages.
How do I comply?
Owners are required to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure that their site complies. It is widely believed that the guidelines produced by the W3C will be used in a court case to assess the level of accessibility of a site. The W3C is an international community which sets standards for the internet. Their accessibility guidelines (WCAG) are split into 3 levels: level 1 (A) is the most basic level of compliance which all websites should adhere to. We recommend that you aim for level 2 (AA) which is the level that all sites should be aiming for, according to the WCAG guidelines. Level 3 (AAA) is the highest level and represents more of the ‘nice-to-have’ features.
At Shift Learning we offer the following accessibility services to help your business comply with the laws:
- An accessibility audit of your website
- Accessibility testing with disabled users
- Complete rebuild of your site taking accessibility requirements into account
- Accessibility style guide for website editors
Â
