What is the basic level of Accessibility for UK local government web site?

Question

Hi,

I'm designing a new site for a local government department in Scotland and I want to make sure I meet the minimum accessibility level for the site.

I had planned to use some jQuery effects, and also to AJAXify the content. But I realised all this JavaScript probably won't be accessible.

We will be using VS2008 ASP.NET 3.5 framework. (C# server side and SQL Server 2005 db)

Does anyone know what the min standard would be for a government run site? It will be public facing and its target user will be kids between 11 and 17.

Also, is there any tools out there for checking our web site? Built in/Add on tools for Visual Studio would be great.

We normally design in house site for our administration teams, so this is the first time we've had to worry about accessibility so answer in a "For Dummies" style if you want! :)

Thanks!

Answer 1

This doesn't appear to have a straight forward answer as there isn't a lot of case law on this in the UK. Anyway, here is one resource:

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_legalcase.hcsp

Answer 2

To satisfy the contract, I wonder if the client shouldn't have input on that - called "requirements"?

W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) may have some interesting points - in particular all the links from Introduction to Web Accessibility

For tools to check, see Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.

As long as you follow the intended ehnance approach of jQuery, it should be just as accessible as not

As an aside; you may find that ASP.NET MVC gives you more control over the html, and hence more ability to meet any requirements.

Answer 3

You should firstly get the client to clarify these requirements, and make sure they actually research the subject as they may not currently have any idea about it and will just add the requirements further down the line when someone points it out (trust me, I've worked within a Scottish government organisation!)

Back when I worked in government (2004 - 2006), it was the e-Gov guidelines that were important and there was one on accessibility. I can't remember if these were publicly accessible or only available on an intranet, but I did find this page with what looks like the same documents: Web Guidelines. Again, you should clarify with the client what is the correct document to adhere to. They may also have their own accessibility standards, depending on what organisation they are (not that you can say of course, but I doubt one of the smaller councils is likely to have this).

The documents can be quite bland and hard to read, and often result in ugly websites because people believe simplicity is the only way to achieve accessibility. Of course this isn't true, so it's up to you to interpret the guidelines and provide justification for breaking them were necessary.

On the subject of tools, I assume you mean some kind of automated testing? If so, the answer is yes they exist, but please don't rely on them as your sole testing method! No amount of automated testing can ever tell you how truly accessible a website is, only real-world testing can do that. One place where a tool can come in handy however is checking colour contrast, there are several that will render your page using algorithms that emulate various forms of colour blindness.

Answer 4

You should have a look at the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

Answer 5

I have a slightly different take on this one.

Why does jQuery / AJAX have to make the site less accessible?

Your page should work without any JavaScript and your jQuery and AJAX calls should be additional to the functionality of the page, replacing default behaviour where appropriate with "experience enhancing" features. One of the best elements of jQuery is that it helps you separate your JavaScript from your HTML.

On the accessibility front, I agree that you should be asking the client - but I also think that it should form a part of any project, even an internal administration console. Employers have to adhere to the rules in the disability discrimination act just as business-to-customer.

Answer 6

You probably want to read the policy document for this published by the Central Office of Information (COI). Delivering Inclusive Websites PDF

To quote from the doc:

These guidelines are for public sector website owners and digital media project managers wishing to deliver inclusive, accessible websites. This document sets out the minimum standard of accessibility for public sector web content and web authoring tools. It recommends a user-centred approach to accessibility, taking account of user needs in the planning and procurement phases of web design projects.

Answer 7

Take a look at out-law.com - a very good legal information site run by a law firm (Pinsent Masons). Their guide to accessibility and usability is here: http://www.out-law.com/page-337

The overview is good and in plain English, no legalese, and there is a section entitled "What standard is required?". It does make the point

Testing your site against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is also a valuable indicator of accessibility.

...

Conformance to WCAG should not be your primary goal and it certainly should not your only goal - but it is likely to be the first thing you check.

Each government department will have their own interpretation of minimum standard. I think there's a lot of inconsistency in some sites that are set up for government departments. As has been said by others - discuss this with the Client.

Answer 8

You also have to comply with the Disability Discrimination act - especially as this is a Government resource.

Info on the act http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DisabilityRights/DG_4001068

and

http://www.coi.gov.uk/guidance.php?page=169

And some information regarding websites and the act at

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/uk-website-legal-requirements.shtml

and

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/accessuk

We deal with quite a few local councils and all of their sites must be accessible via screen readers so that those with visual impairments can use them, as such they need to be able to be navigated if the user has JavaScript and CSS disabled.

You need to ensure that if you use any CSS on the site that the navigation and structure degrade gracefully so that they make sense (e.g. don't make the navigation the last item on the page and the use CSS to move it to the top). Don't make any navigation dependant on Javascript either (or at least have an alternative method of navigating if the user has JavaScript turned off).

HTML and CSS should be validated to ensure there are no errors.

All images need ALT attributes

All links need title attributes

Any tables should have a summary

There are many more items like these but testing should flag these up.

In terms of testing the site there are a few free screen readers available - although we had limited success with these as they were pretty hit and miss as to how they worked. "Jaws" seems to be the industry "standard" at the moment but this is ridiculously expensive so you may want to outsource any testing to another company; although some councils will organise this themselves.

You should also test the site on a text only browser such as Lynx.

A few more resouces can be found below:

Jaws

http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp

Free

www.screenreader.net/ www.webaim.org/simulations/screenreader.php www.xpscreenreader.com/ firevox.clcworld.net/ - Firefox plugin sourceforge.net/projects/fangs/ - Firefox plugin

Accessibility Checkers

Functional Accessibility Evaluator - http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu/ WAVE - http://wave.webaim.org/ Cynthia Says - http://www.cynthiasays.com/ TAW Web Accessibility Test - http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en

Or download the Firefox accessibility checker which contains checks for all the above as wells as HTML and CSS validators https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5809

Answer 9

Visual Studio will generate accessible X/HTML mark-up for the client based entirely on the DOCTYPE you choose for the site and also the version of the web browser that is be used, which is a nice feature.

For public sector sites you need to try and ensure that an AJAX or JQuery elements are also available if JavaScript it disabled. That is, make the funky additional features an optional extra for JS-endowed users, but the core function of the page will work regardless.

Don't rely on JQuery for fundamental features as remember that in all liklihood, a screenreader will probably not be able to understand it and a non-JS browser won't either.

It's important to note that non-JS browser doesn't neccesarily mean an old browser, but could just mean a web browser on a device like a mobile phone or some other future device that we don't know about yet.

You should make sure that you use a DOCTYPE like XHTML 1.0 Strict. Specifying the DOCTYPE will mean that Visual Studio generates specific and compatible mark-up and 90% fullfills the requirement to create 'valid' code. You can check additional code quality with the W3C Validator Service.

For accesibility of content you should think about:

• Do the colour schemes I've used contrast sufficiently (for partially sighted users)
• Am I using clear and well-structured text in the pages (for blind users)
• Make use of the split between CSS and HTML and ensure that if CSS is disabled then the page renders in a reasonable fashion (of the very least looks like a screen reader could comprehend it).
• Make sure the code is valid using W3C Validators

Hope that helps.