Confusion reigns over website Accessibility Compliance

The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) proves hostile to findings that show it to have failed basic accessibility compliance requirements, and its response adds confusion to an already confused market.

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) requires businesses and organisations to make websites accessible to all users, particularly the disabled. Yet the DRC and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) along with the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), the supposed standard bearers for website accessibility, continue to fail even the most basic A/AA requirements. The findings and the reports produced by SiteMorse showed, for example, demonstrates that the DRCís website failed both A / AA continually over the last few months ñ even following a rather sharp letter from their chairman back in May, explaining our tests had ëcaught them on a bad day, the error was not on their own site but that of a sponsorÖí article at the end of the document, SiteMorse then re-checked the report to find a problems, one as basic as the image description on the letter from the Chief Executive

Top Site in the report was Red Ant, achieving full compliance for accessibility (based on the automated tests that are possible) Gavin Massey ñ Head of Accessibility at Red Ant commented ëWe are obviously very pleased with this result. SiteMorse testing is a key part of our development process. We have always had the policy íto practice what we preachí and have found SiteMorse reports to be essential when aiming for WCAG AA for the mandatory ívalid HTMLí testing. Other popular products just donít offer this.

While the importance of automated testing is clear, it does not guarantee true accessibility until itís put to the test by people with disabilities. Red Ant work with a number of disabled internet users to ensure our websites offer the highest levels of accessibility to everyone. We encourage the competition and awareness these league tables bring.í

Head of Media at the DRC, Patrick Edwards, gave me a hostile reception when interviewed about the test results. He seemed to place usability testing through human interaction above web accessibility compliance. He caused confusion when he inferred in a telephone conversation that there are no legal standards for website accessibility, even though a number of DRC speeches and documents (including comments made in the Guardian) clearly state that it is a legal duty for organisations and businesses to make their sites accessible to the UKís 8-10 million disabled people.

The DRC made no comment about the number of other problems lettered across their site, broken links, pages that do not work correctly and missing images.

The DRCís own chairman, Bert Massie, even said in April 2004: ìOrganisations that offer goods and services on the Web already have a legal duty to make their sites accessible.î The transcripted speeches made at Islingtonís Business Design Centre at that time on ëThe Web: Access and Inclusion for Disabled Peopleí emphasise the legal duty of organisations and businesses to ensure that their websites are accessible, or they could potentially face prosecution for discrimination under the DDA.

Now I wouldnít claim to be an expert, but Edwardsí comments and tone during the interview and in an email that followed the conversation were shocking and puzzling. ìYou asked whether there were legal standards for web site accessibility and there are notî, he later said and added, ìThere are duties under part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (the 1999 duties) which require services provided over the web which make it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to receive a service to make reasonable adjustments. The law does not spell out what these adjustments are.î

ìThere are web guidelines for accessibility and I expressed the view, also supported in our report, that meeting technical access requirements was not sufficient in itself to guarantee that the disabled people could actually use the sites. Our formal investigation revealed that where minimal access standards were achieved in line with ëAí level registration ñ the lowest, there were unfortunately few sites that achieved a standard above this ñ significant numbers of disabled users still had problems using the site. I made it clear to you that involving disabled people in testing sites allied to meeting technical compliance was a surer way of ensuring that sites were able to be used by disabled people.î

He also claimed that SiteMorseís reports on the DRCís site were erroneous, and that they actually reflected an external site that was only linked to its own. However, he refused to provide further information or comment when he was asked to show what the errors were in the reports; that is until further evidence is supplied. SiteMorse says it will be sending this to him in due course.

Nick Le Seelleur, director of SiteMorse commented: ìThe Child Support Agency and many others have found that our tools have helped them to achieve higher levels of web accessibility compliance; our tests and reports have proven themselves to be very accurate and even more accurate than those of rival tools like Bobby.î

The RNIB: Keen to Improve
The RNIB, which was more welcoming, appeared keener to get to the bottom of the problem. It also rated usability quite highly, but suggested that it is of equal importance and part of the same coin. Its Press Officer, Bill Alker, supports a combined approach to testing and believes that user evaluation is ëunder-utilisedí. He said that his organisationís site ìconforms to the RNIBís ëSee it Rightí accreditation, which is based on the WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.î

Alker advises that companies and organisations should, ìInvolve their potential users of their web site in testing designs from the earliest stage, including disabled users. Frequent user testing can ensure íreal usabilityí for disabled people, and the results are much more useful than those produced by using automated testing tools alone Great emphasis is placed on ëlikely human behaviour.í He also claimed that automated tools cannot test the appropriateness of ALT text descriptions.

Confused Definitions and Poor Awareness
Both the DRC and the RNIB doubt the validity and accuracy of automated testing, even though SiteMorse ñ which is a specialist in this field ñ has conducted research and received client feedback that shows its clients have made significant improvements to their sites since using the companyís web accessibility testing tools.

Questions are also raised about whether the standards are fully understood, whether there is sufficient awareness of the need for website accessibility compliance, and whether the definitions of usability and accessibility are clear. It often seems that these terms are being used as one and the same, and SiteMorse wonders whether the web accessibility compliance providers and service provision companies understand them fully too. This limited understanding and the confusion over the requirements make it difficult to tender for developments.

ìWe receive a high volume of complaints from organisations who are confused by or who feel they have been misled by the results produced by some automated tools. The RNIB agrees that there is no single test for web accessibility. Automated checking tools fail to address the user experience in a meaningful way, and may produce false positive and false negative results.î Alker said. He recommends a combined approach to assessing the accessibility of websites, while emphasising that ìcompliance to the WAIís guideline is crucialî.

Bobbie Johnson also writes in The Guardian, ìThe Disability Discrimination Act was enacted five years ago, but widespread confusion over its terms meant many people thought it did not affect websites until this October. In fact, web accessibility has been part of the law all along.î

Unwittingly Misled By Providers?
There are a number of organisations and companies that claim to achieve web accessibility compliance. The monthly stringent tests, league tables and in-depth reports created by SiteMorse, however, often show that they actually fail even some of the very basic requirements. Sometimes this is down to the tool that they use; there are many tools that only scratch the surface, which can as a result provide misleading data. There are some web design and development agencies, designers, accessibility compliance and service provision companies, which may also unwittingly mislead their clients.

There is certainly a case for more web designer and developer training in this area, because their awareness of the issues may be limited. Yet sometimes they may simply ignore, or be required to ignore, web accessibility requirements in favour of a more creative design, and therefore fail to test their designs and developments for compliance. However, they should be aware that there are economic, financial and a legal case for making sure that disabled people can have access to their websites.

Bobbie Johnson explains in his Guardian report: ìThe moral imperative may now be a legal compulsion, but many businesses are beginning to understand accessibility issues in a way that is more familiar to them: money. There are an estimated 9m people in Britain suffering from some form of disability, and such figures get the attention of marketing men and bean counters. No company can afford to alienate or exclude an audience of that magnitude.î

Evidence: The League Tables
It is interesting to note that in SiteMorseís league table for January 2005, ëTesting and Ranking of the Accessibility Compliance and Service Provision Companiesí, that RedAnt and Nomensa are the only ones to pass the automated tests checking for A and AA compliance ñ demonstrating building compliant sites is achievable. Sitting right at the bottom of the league is FHIOS.

They Could Do Better
The DRC, RNID, and the RNIB should at least do more to pass the basic levels of web accessibility compliance. They are after all supposed to be the exemplary organisations promoting the issue and the DRC is expecting to see a number of test cases going through the courts at some point in time. With this in mind, Edwards should further clarify his position on the legal side of web accessibility.

While there may be no legal duty to make a site usable, there is a legal duty to make websites accessible to disabled people. Those that ignore this could find themselves in court accused of discrimination. Itís not just a moral imperative for compliance, because poor accessibility has a financial and economic impact too.

Lastly, does the DRC have the clout to enforce greater accessibility when it seems to place usability above anything else, and while it continues to fail basic levels of compliance? This is not what a standard bearing organisation should do. Both organisations could do better.