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New standard to make websites accessible for all
11 Jun 2010
Topics: Accessibility
A new standard that is being developed to help make websites accessible to all is soon to be published. The standard called BS 8878 Web accessibility - Code of Practice is going through its final stage of development whereby interested stakeholders are asksed to comment, in particular, website owners, web product managers, web procurement managers, usability and accessibility specialists, marketing professionals and disabled web users
There are many reasons why organizations should make their web products more accessible and usable including commercial, legal and ethical reasons. For example, opening up websites in the UK to the estimated 11 million people with disabilities can only be of benefit to both organizations and their users. Whilst not considered disabled, others that will benefit include the elderly who are affected by the minor multiple impairments of aging, and those for example with a low reading age.
Another driver is the law. Legally, in the UK, if an organization's website or web product is not accessible to a disabled person, that person may have grounds for making a claim against the organization under the Equality Act 2010 or the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
While many web products unwittingly and unlawfully exclude disabled and elderly people, in most cases the barriers these web products present can be removed. The new draft British Standard explains how to create organizational policies and production processes to identity and remove such barriers.
This is not the first time that the draft standard has been made available for public comment. The first draft for public comment (DPC) was published in December 2008 and attracted an unprecedented amount of interest. Taking this feedback on board as well as changes in legislation and advances in technology, the revised draft now contains additional guidance material on topics such as:
- The Equality Act 2010
- The relationship between inclusive design and user-personalized approaches to accessibility, including whether to provide additional accessibility provisions
- Creating accessible web products for computer, mobile and IPTV platforms
- How to procure accessible web products
- How to assure a product's accessibility throughout the production process, including the value and costs of different forms of accessibility testing
- Dealing with feedback and complaints on accessibility from users.
Jonathan Hassell of the BBC and Chair of the committee responsible for drafting DPC BS 8878 commented, "Site owners urgently need an end-to-end guide to help them to ensure their products consider the needs of disabled and elderly people at all stages of the web production process, from initial requirements gathering, through selection of technologies and platforms, testing, launch and maintenance.
"BS 8878 is that guide. It's designed to be a real-world standard, talking about real-world issues, experienced by real users, wanting to use real up-to-date web 2.0 products. It's designed for real web product managers and production staff dealing with the real decisions they need to make every day which will affect whether or not their products will include or exclude disabled and elderly people.
"This Draft for Public Comment is a chance for people to tell us whether our drafting committee has got the content and style of the standard right and both give them an idea of the breadth of the parts of their production process that accessibility issues impact, and also demystified accessibility so that they feel confident that they know how to proceed."
DPC BS 8878 can be viewed at www.bsigroup.com/drafts until 30 June 2010. All comments will be considered by the BSI technical committee responsible for drafting the standard.
Photography: Wikimedia Commons. Some conditions apply. Picture by Picture by Hay Kranen
Business Standards © 2010. Editorial produced by Caspian Publishing in association with The British Standards Institution. Editorial opinions expressed on are not necessarily those of BSI Group or Caspian Publishing. Neither Caspian Publishing nor BSI Group accept responsibility for advertising or editorial content, nor for that appearing on linked third-party websites. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without written permission from BSI Group or Caspian Publishing.
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