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Websites for the disabled fail accessibility test
Ecommerce sites shamed last week - but is this a whole lot worse?

By Will Sturgeon

Published: Tuesday 20 April 2004

The majority of websites run by disability organisations are, incredibly, failing to pass accessibility tests - meaning they cannot be used by some of the very users that they aim to support.

Last week, leading ecommerce websites were shamed by the Disabled Rights Commission for failing accessibility tests but many members of the online community will be more shocked by this latest revelation exposed by Ethical Media for its Disability 50 survey.

Ethical Media tested 50 leading disability websites again the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The guidelines were established to ensure that disabled users, such as those with visual impairments, would still be able to access the internet.

While such organisations are bound by the same laws as the majority of failing e-tail sites, some may argue they have a greater moral obligation to comply with these standards. Yet a shocking 58 per cent failed to achieve the W3C's compulsory compliance level.

While these sites are clearly failing their users, they are also failing in the important role of leading by example, according to Paul Sternberg, managing director of Ethical Media.

Sternberg added that those organisations that fail to achieve basic compliance also risk serious damage to their reputations and undermining their own good causes.

However, Struan Robertson, associate solicitor at IT law firm Masons, said a major difference between sites aimed at the disabled and the ecommerce sites shamed last week is funding.

"Financial resources would have to be taken into consideration," he said. "The Disabled Rights Commission itself has stated that financial resources will be a factor in determining what changes should be made to a site."

If a disability organisation's website received a complaint, Robertson believes a court would be unlikely to decide it had the necessary financial resources available to create high-level accessibility functionality for its site and was therefore remiss for not doing so.

A number of sites, including AbilityNet, Action for Blind People, the British Council for Disabled People and the Disability Rights Commission were singled out for praise by Ethical Media - though some major names are conspicuous by their absence from that list.