Website Compliance with the UK's DDA - Free Seminar
Regarding the seminar I just posted to Accessify, discuss it here!
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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That's excellent, thanks Nigel 
I've registered for it.
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Thanks Gez, they sent them wrong in the email!
Fixed.
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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Sorry, mate. It was me that was wrong. I quickly edited my post (it was only there a fraction of a second, so you must have been really quick). I'm really sorry.
I'll pay more attention in future, I promise
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lol refixed
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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I'll be interested to see what accessibility standards they say will apply under the DDA, given that that hasn't been defined anywhere as far as I know... 
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I suspect they'll tag on to whatever guidelines are already in place. In particular, the following two points from the Disability Rights Commision's page on the Disability Discrimination Act.
| Quote: |
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* since December 1996 it has been unlawful to treat disabled people less favourably than other people for a reason related to their disability. * since October 1999 they have had to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services. |
Both of those points apply equally to web-based services.
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| gez wrote: |
| Both of those points apply equally to web-based services. |
Entirely agree with you there, gez.
I was thinking more in terms of the kind of questions I'm asked at work, like "If I make my website WAI "A" compliant, will that make it compliant with the DDA?". That sort of "accessibility standard" simply isn't defined in the DDA - it all comes down to what may or may not be deemed (by the courts) to be a "reasonable adjustment" to accommodate the effects of someone's disability.
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Agreed dms our legislation is far too wooly in my opinion. I think Section 508 is a much better attempt at this problem.
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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| dms wrote: |
|
I was thinking more in terms of the kind of questions I'm asked at work, like "If I make my website WAI "A" compliant, will that make it compliant with the DDA?". That sort of "accessibility standard" simply isn't defined in the DDA - it all comes down to what may or may not be deemed (by the courts) to be a "reasonable adjustment" to accommodate the effects of someone's disability. |
That's true, we don't have any operational guidelines in this country that I'm aware of. If I were the Prime Minister of accessibility, being naturally lazy, I would use the guidelines of WCAG 1.0 rather than duplicate a subset of them. I would use the criteria the WAI use for conformance; WAI "A" must be addressed for any website, WAI "AA" should be addressed for any website offering a public service, and WAI "AAA" being an ideal. This approach also addresses an issue raised elsewhere on these forums, as to which countries guidelines should be followed. If all countries were following the guidelines of WAI, there would be consistency and clear goals.
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| gez wrote: |
| If I were the Prime Minister of accessibility, being naturally lazy, I would use the guidelines of WCAG 1.0 rather than duplicate a subset of them. |
Seems to make most sense - but ask our Italian friends about this. They have a minister who has decided to junk existing guidelines and come up with a whole new set. What a genius. I mean what a complete and utter waste of time and well done for introducing yet more confusion.
I'm afraid I don't have the info - this was relayed to me personally by an Italian accessibility advocate.
UPDTE: I believe this is the man:
http://www.mininnovazione.it/eng/ministro/ministro_eng.shtm
Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way!
A beginners' HTML/CSS book with web standards at its heart
The Ultimate HTML Reference
A complete reference, in glorious hardback
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| lloydi wrote: |
| They have a minister who has decided to junk existing guidelines and come up with a whole new set. What a genius. I mean what a complete and utter waste of time and well done for introducing yet more confusion.
I'm afraid I don't have the info - this was relayed to me personally by an Italian accessibility advocate. UPDTE: I believe this is the man: http://www.mininnovazione.it/eng/ministro/ministro_eng.shtm |
Well what's the point then, I mean really?
This is a concern that was expressed in this
thread and as I intimated there, it just makes me want to forget about the whole thing until such year a dominant worldwide standard emerges.
I won't take such action yet of course but if this fragmentation continues then it just dilutes all our efforts to almost meaningless time-wasting.
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I appreciate your frustration Mike but there still a lot of point, regardless of the standards or the legislation, we're still making sites accessible to people with special needs, which has moral benefits and business benefits
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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I see what you're saying Nigel, but this comes down to the software vendors enabling the standards to function so that we in turn can call on them.
For every permutation of each different standard to work, it will add considerable costs for the vendors and may well even clash or break another related, but different, standard required by another body should we as designers try to accomodate them...and that's assuming that we're capable of learning them all anyway!
...and let's not even think about the added code-bloat!!
Extending the logic of the evidence so far leads me to think that far from making the web accessible to all, it could well end up being restricted to National regions a'la DVD's for instance.
</rant>
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I totally agree with what you're saying, I was just saying don't give up on it.
It's a tough problem, in theory complying with WCAG *should* make your site stand up to any countries legislation but I don't know them inside out to say whether it does.
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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