"There is an almost universal failure to create web experiences that can be used by disabled people"

After a busy start to the year we are now devoting time to significant announcements from government and regulators regarding website compliance. This is a subject which can’t be ignored for long!

The government has chosen 2009 as the year to take action against '.gov.uk' sites that do not meet accessibility compliance.

British Standards have released a draft of their new standard "Web accessibility - Building accessible experiences for disabled people - Code of Practice". This needs to be addressed by anyone interested in robust corporate governance. The key points in an article are reviewed here.

We also have the publication of the long awaited latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines from WAI.

Microsoft, through development by its accessibility partner HiSoftware, has announced the new version of the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS 2.0).

The Virtual Zone is continuing to offer essential assessment, monitoring and where required rewrite packages which will boost your compliance, but read on...

What’s in it for you? Get in touch to receive a free assessment of the accessibility of your website. We are able to offer fast, cost effective website scanning and testing services. Our accessibility scan covers A, AA and AAA against WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 checkpoints.

We will provide you with a confidential summary assessment of your website and some specific pointers for areas to improve. We can also show you how you rate against a competitor of your choice.

The tools we use have been proven globally with FTSE100 and Fortune 500 organisations.

What's in it for us? To establish a long term relationship with you; we are able to offer in house guidance and legal services for businesses who wish to improve their website quality and compliance.

Talk to us and have a look at our website - after another successful year we saw positive outcomes for all our clients and we are confident we can help you.

Nick Wilson

New British Standard Released

British Standards release draft of their first standard to address website accessibility

A draft British Standard for websites has been released for public review and comment. BS 8878 "Web accessibility - Building accessible experiences for disabled people - Code of Practice".

The new British Standard will give business owners new guidance for building and maintaining web content that is accessible to disabled people.

Julie Howell, chair of the cross-industry committee responsible for the draft Standard said, "There is an almost universal failure to create web experiences that can be used by disabled people".

The standard not only tackles public websites but also employee intranets and other online applications.

The draft says that the CEO of a business "should ensure that a department or specified role is responsible for the organisation's compliance with BS 8878" and the appointed person or department should also understand how disabled people access and use web content.

The draft explains the business case for accessibility; how to allocate responsibilities within an organisation; the impact of the Disability Discrimination Act; how disabled people use websites; how to choose technologies and how to contract with web developers or vendors of content management systems.

The draft tackles the issue of website testing both with automated tools and using disabled users. Also included is text which can be extracted and used in an organisation's accessibility or procurement statement.

The draft British Standard is available from drafts.bsigroup.com

Comments are currently being invited and the final Standard is expected to be published in summer 2009.

An additional document is also in preparation providing return on investment information and help for organisations needing to produce a business case for creating an accessible website. We will send out details once this has been released.

New website accessibility guidelines

On Thursday 11 December, the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) released its new website accessibility standards WCAG 2.0. Details of the Website Accessibility Standards WCAG 2.0 can be found at www.w3.org/WAI.

These standards replace WCAG 1.0, which were first published in May 1999, and provide an important update to modernise the guidelines.

The WAI say the reason for developing WCAG 2.0 was to create something that applies broadly to more advanced technologies; is easier to use and understand and is more precisely testable with automated testing and human evaluation.

Advice on how to interpret the changes is currently being produced and most of the automated testing technologies will have new versions of their software in test. HiSoftware has already produced updates for WCAG 2.0 in its testing suite and these will be available in the next software update.

For the time being website assessment for compliance to DDA and other legislation is still against the checkpoints set out in WCAG 1.0.

SharePoint Accessibility Addressed

Microsoft in partnership with HiSoftware have released version 2 of their Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS). The kit is now available for download and includes templates to help developers create accessible sites and a replacement text editor to help content authors maintain the site’s accessibility. The Accessibility Kit provides reusable tools and components, as well as documentation and tutorials to ensure that SharePoint provides a basic solution for accessibility.

"If you have or are planning a SharePoint Website or Intranet then using the AKS will significantly reduce the time, knowledge and effort required to implement an accessible SharePoint-based site. The latest version of the kit also assists with compliance for the newest standards WCAG 2.0."

Free Website Accessibility Heath Check

Using our in house testing facilities, we are able to offer you a free web accessibility health check which provides a review of the site for DDA compliance and other issues and gives pointers on how to deal with any accessibility issues.

Please contact us at info@thevirtualzone.co.uk to arrange for your no obligation website review.