February 2005 - Welcome |
| to the first of our monthly newsletters,
through which we’ll aim to keep you up-to-date with developments
in web consulting and analysis, and let you know about some
of what we’ve been up to lately. |
| If you’d rather not receive
this in future please reply with the subject “unsubscribe”. |
| Please note that links to other websites
open in a new window. |
| Important! –
please join us and the Royal National Institute of the Blind
(RNIB) in supporting Tom Brake MP’s early day motion calling
for more accessible websites in accordance with Section 21 of
the Disability Discrimination Act. You can read more about this
below or by visiting our website at www.net-progress.co.uk.
Thank you. |
Website Accessibility |
| It seems website accessibility is
finally starting to become the high profile issue it should
have been a long time ago, although it has to be said that the
vast majority of businesses have yet to give this important
subject due attention - either by providing an accessible version
of their website or by making their existing website accessible
(by far the best solution, as it engenders a sense of inclusion
for all visitors). |
| Many companies either don’t
consider accessibility at all, or react defensively to a perceived
threat posed by legislation rather than seizing the opportunity
to reap the benefits of addressing the issue. |
| Some firms allow themselves to be
confused by the various accessibility ‘standards’
and (for UK firms) what the relationship is between those standards
and the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
|
| In fact, the DDA simply requires the
same kind of ‘reasonable adjustments’ as in the
physical world – the key is what’s reasonable, and
being seen to comply with one or more of the standards may well
be a good place to start. |
| Links to Web Accessibility Standards: |
World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
U.S.
Section 508 Guidelines
|
| A vast number of both Business to
Business and consumer-facing websites make no concession at
all to sight-impaired visitors, demonstrating obvious problems
– the use of images rather than text, images without alt
tags, navigation that relies on JavaScript, inaccessible flash
sites and so on. |
| For these companies any kind of compliance
with standards (or legislative requirements) seems a long way
off, and until the DDA starts to be more rigorously enforced,
many of them seem destined to remain in blissful ignorance,
not just of the potential risk exposure, but of their failure
to realise the opportunities. |
| It’s important to remember that
there are some simple ‘quick wins’ – adding
alt text, providing accessible navigation and text-based content,
allowing visitors to choose text size and colour – that
can make a big difference. |
| According to figures released
in December 2004 by the Department
of Work and Pensions, disabled people
in the UK have a spending power of £80bn. So if the threat
of legislation being enforced, the damage to brand reputation
– or the desire to simply ‘do the right thing’
– haven’t yet caused businesses to consider accessibility,
the value of that lost revenue may still prompt a change. |
net-guide achieves RNIB “See it Right”
accreditation |
| Our not-for-profit accessibility-focused
search engine project, net-guide (www.net-guide.co.uk),
has received the RNIB’s
See it Right accreditation. |
| While accessibility is the cornerstone
of net-guide, and accessibility assessment a key part of our
‘day job’, we thought it was important to practice
what we preach and have the website independently audited. The
RNIB is in our view the ideal organisation to assess levels
of accessibility, and the "See it Right" logo is recognised
as representing the highest standards. |
| We’re pleased to report
not only that we achieved the accreditation, but also that –
as a result of the coverage recently afforded net-guide –
the issues have been picked up by Tom Brake MP, who has tabled
an early
day motion calling for more accessible
websites in line with Section 21 of the Disability Discrimination
Act. |
We need your support! |
| Please join us and the RNIB
in supporting Tom Brake MP’s early day motion by
downloading a letter and
sending it to your MP calling for their support. At the time
of writing, the motion already has the support of 34 MPs across
all major UK political parties. |
Website Surveys |
| |
“there's no basis for what they've 'reported'.
They have refused 3 requests from me to provide us with detail
other than that our site 'fails'. The information they have
released is a sales pitch for their software” |
| |
| You’ve probably noticed the
increasing proliferation of website surveys, reports and so
on – all showing the desperate need the companies surveyed
have of the product or services offered by whichever company
produced the survey. |
| One problem is the different focus
of different surveys, leading to confusion over what the results
really mean. For example, one survey might look primarily at
server availability or site speed, another at broken links or
accessibility. |
| The unfortunate end result is companies
becoming jaded by all the conflicting reports and unsure of
their website’s objective overall performance. Of course,
that often seems to be the intention, to try to scare companies
into buying the web design or development services or website
testing software offered by those who’ve conducted the
survey. |
| At this point, we should declare
an interest. As a company that produces sector surveys ourselves,
we aim to set a high standard of objectivity and results of
value; you can see an example on our surveys
page. |
| Our surveys seek to reward
good practice as much as highlight problem
areas (we do not generally single out websites for criticism
– we make general observations of problems in a sector
and only single out the best-performing sites by name). |
| Because our core business isn’t
design or development (although we do a little of that) or selling
software, we provide objective, independent analysis with no
ulterior motives. Which is why our work is of sufficient value
that businesses and publications are prepared to pay for it.
|
| So if you find yourselves the subject
of a report that leaves you with more questions than answers
and want a second opinion, you can always give us a call (the
number’s just below) for an impartial analysis of your
website. |
| That’s all for this month’s
net-update. If there’s a specific issue you’d like
to see covered next month, please let us know. |
| Ends |
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