Disability Discrimination

How accessible if my website?

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) makes it unlawful to discriminate against people in respect of their disabilities in relation to employment, the provision of goods and services, education and transport;your website does fall within "the provision of good and services, so it is important you are aware of the accessibility (or not) of your online presence.

Blind and visually impaired users ‘surf the internet' using screen reader software which speaks back to them text displayed in the content of a webpage including details on images and links, however for those screen readers to work certain information is required which is tagged to the image and links to enable the screen reader to make some sense of the image or link.

Unfortunately it is not possible to provide a definitive specification for a fully accessible website which will satisfy the requirements of the DDA, however the Disability Rights Commission (DRC)* has provided some guidance set out in their Publicly Available Specification which can be downloaded from their website

You can test your website using the WebXact tool from Watchfire which will produce a detailed report on areas of Accessibility where you could make changes in your website to make it more accessible to all users.

* The DRC is an independent body established in April 2000 by an Act of Parliament to stop discrimination and promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. The DRC's goal is "a society where all disabled people can participate fully as equal citizens".