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Giving your website 'wheelchair access' can prevent litigation and increase market exposure


Sunday, December 24, 2006



Most of you today can hardly imagine life without the Internet. At your convenience, you can access research data, news, email, shopping, and entertainment.

Now, at the click of a mouse, the world can be "at your fingertips"- that is, if you can use a mouse... and see the screen... and hear the audio - in other words, if you don't have a disability of any kind.
When developing a website, quite often the focus is on having the site look flashy and impressive. A professional- looking website is important, but it is just as important that the site is web accessible.

What is web accessibility?

Web accessibility is providing people who have disabilities with the opportunity to surf through a website with minimum inconvenience.
Websites that are easily accessible by fully-able people may be impossible for people with disabilities to access. For example, that beautiful new website that your high-priced designer just created may be impossible for a person using screen-reading technology to navigate; particularly if they are blind or have low vision. Those "frames" or neat drop-down Java menus on your site may be impossible to use with voice command software

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the Internet, once said: "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." From the very beginning, the question of how to make the Internet's wealth of information and experiences available to everyone who wants it has been a concern. Between 1997 and 1999, discrimination laws were passed in the US, Canada and Britain that echoed Lee's vision of the future, but did little to further it.

Since then, a number of individuals and organisations have filed lawsuits against companies and institutions for not providing web accessible websites. Some of these companies being sued include Southwest and American Airlines, America Online, Barnes & Noble, Claire's and Target. Most of the litigations were filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which basically states that discrimination against people with disabilities is prohibited. While most of these cases were dismissed, the companies had to spend a considerable amount of time defending themselves and countering the 'bad press'.

As a Jamaican business owner, you may be thinking that no one is going to file a lawsuit against your website; but why not? Furthermore, why leave yourself open to having to deal with such negative issues when the problem can easily be addressed in the first place. I was once asked, "What is it that you would never want to get, but if you get it you never want to lose?" The answer: a court case.

In addition, the economic impact of ignoring these potential users was clearly illustrated in a 2003 report by the UK Disability Rights Commission. They showed that there were 8.7 million legally disabled Britons who commanded a £40 billion annual spending power.
However, nearly 4 times that much income was held by those aged 50 or older who suffered from some degree of visual, hearing or cognitive impairment. Just one year later, in 2004, Forrester Research and Microsoft announced results of their extensive study that pushed these numbers even higher and spread their economic impact further.
Notwithstanding the potential economic impact and the threat of lawsuits, web accessibility is simply the right thing to do. When implemented, there are other benefits, too, such as increased usability for all users, higher search engine ranking, good publicity and compliance with future technology (PDA, WebTV, In Car Browser).

How to make your website accessible

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the governing body of the Internet, has created a set of accessibility guidelines. These guidelines contain three levels of prioritising actions that companies need to take to become accessible. Priority One guidelines are those that must be met to bring existing websites into compliance with existing laws.

Priority two guidelines should be met in order for your company to meet the requirements of new legislation being introduced in various countries globally. Priority Three guidelines are suggestions of additional steps you can take. Although there can be no guarantees, it is expected that meeting priority two guidelines will put you in line with existing legislative requirements.

There are a few free online resources that can quickly check your website for basic accessibility compliance. There are also paid services that will do a thorough check. The main emphasis of the web accessibility guidelines is to ensure that your content is rendered in ways that are accessible to people from various disability groups. Using Alt tags to provide text equivalents for non-text content like images and video should make your web content available by way of sight, hearing and touching.

There are, of course, many more steps to be met in the W3C guidelines, and there could be many more to come as more countries pass laws that refine and define best accessibility practices. But the extent of the risks that your company might be facing right now because of your accessibility ratings is something that you can determine yourself or with the help of a professional.

Wayne Marsh is an Internet consultant with WFI Internet, Consulting and Education. You can email him at marshwa@wsiwebprofits.com