The most important of these is the Equality Act 2010, which comes into effect from 1st October in the UK. Its aim is to simplify and strengthen current anti-discrimination legislation. From the disability perspective it mostly reinforces the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. In brief, it requires providers of goods and services (including online ones) to make reasonable adjustments to make them accessible to the disabled. This does not necessarily mean that your website has to be totally accessible, but it does mean you need to think how to make your services accessible (which may be an alternative form of provision to the web). However it makes good business sense to provide people with as many ways as possible to access your services and making a site easier for a disabled person to use often has the knock-on effect of making it easier for everyone else as well.

Can improving accessibility also improve your bottom line?

Robert Wemyss of the Royal Mail Group's Web Accessibility Team, speaking at the recent E-Access10 Conference, reported that they had found concern for accessibility indeed made financial sense. They had done work to make one of their sites accessible to screen readers, and found that improved search engine optimisation was a positive side-effect. As a consequence, their site took the top spot for a year in the Google results for the search term 'Travel Insurance', leading to GBP 10k more travel insurance business per week!

Changing demands for online services

If Martha Lane Fox, the Government's Digital Champion, and the Manifesto for a Networked Nation are successful in getting many of the people who are currently disenfranchised online, then the demographic of those using the internet is going to drastically change: a significant number of those involved are the elderly, the disadvantaged and the disabled. The demands on online services are going to change and increase, and providers of those services are going to have to give more thought to how they meet people's needs.

So what proportion of the population are we talking about here? Dr Jean Irvine, Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, spoke at the E-Access10 conference on 13th July 2010 and she quoted figures of 1:7 of the working population, 1:20 of young people and a hefty 1:2 of the over 65's have some disability. This covers a very wide range of disabilities and of course not all of these will affect someone's ability to use an online service.

Introducing a New Accessibility Standard

In recognition that this whole area is something of a minefield for website owners, the British Standards Institute are developing a new Standard - BS 8878 Building accessible experiences for disabled people - Code of practice. This has recently gone through a consultation phase and should be published in November 2010. Although I'm writing about legislation in the UK, similar initiatives are being launched in other countries as well (and I'd be delighted to hear your comments on how these issues are being addressed in your country).

The BS8878 has grown out of PAS-78 (2006), which was a response to research done in 2005 by The British Disability Rights Commission, showing that whilst accessibility was a legal requirement for all sites, companies were not doing very well at it. The world of the Web has moved on significantly since then; hence the new standard which recognises the very different sorts of online activities and platforms now available.

I will try to give a flavour of the process it describes and my thanks go to Jonathan Hassell, Head of Audience Experience & Usability, BBC Future Media & Technology who has been chairing the working group and who gave an excellent presentation on the standard at E-Access10 for much of the information here.

BS8878 aims to be a step by step guide to the process for site owners, helping them recognise and record the decisions they are making throughout the process. These steps are:

1. Assign responsibility for accessibility to someone who should familiarise themselves with the business reasons for accessibility and become the accessibility champion. The OneVoice publication Accessible ICT - Benefits to Business and Society is a good starting point.

2. For each web product, carry out research before you start any development activities:

• The purpose of the product (eg. Information, tool/service, entertainment, social community)
• Its target audience (eg. restricted such as an intranet, a particular group of people such as youth, or a very general audience), their needs in terms of experience, and their situation and any restrictions they have (eg. In a working environment where they are limited in the technology they are allowed to use).
• Relationship with the audience - personalised or general.
• Their goals in interacting with your product and their relationship with it.

3. Then make strategic choices based on the research such as:

• The target accessibility level you will aim for. Will users find it
  • Technically accessible?
  • Usable?
  • Enjoyable?
  There isn't a correct answer here according to BS8878, but it outlines the options and makes it clear you have to make a choice, be able to justify it and record it.

4. Implement these choices as the product is developed, following accessibility guidelines and recording any production decisions as you go along. BS8878 gives information about the appropriate guidelines.

5. Communicate your accessibility philosophy and decisions to your audience on launch through an easily found accessibility statement, written in a way they will understand.

6. Make sure it gets carried through in post-launch maintenance and give users a chance to give feedback which is reviewed and acted upon when appropriate.

As I already mentioned, this is a UK initiative, but most countries today have similar initiatives being developed or already in place. How is accessibility promoted and protected in your country? Share your experiences in the comments below.