The Disability Discrimination Act and The Web
The Disability Discrimination Act, has been in force since 1995 and is a legal act in the UK. Since 1999 it has applied to websites where a service is provided to the public and is aimed at ensuring that any service offered to the public via the internet is not unreasonably obstructive to those with disabilities.
The most famous case to date is that of a blind man who took the Sydney Olympics to court over their website which he was unable to access. Their initial response to his complaint was that he should get a sighted individual to read it for him.
He won the court case and the organisers had to payout a significant sum of money and also redesign the entire website with only weeks to go before the event.
Important lessons can be learnt:
- Ensuring your website is DDA compliant in the first place will save you a lot of trouble in the future and ensure that your message can be accessed by millions of disabled people.
- Secondly, in the example cited the web designers saw the problem as that of the blind man and not their own, this was wrong and this was exactly the obstructive attitude the law is designed to combat.
It is up to you to decide upon the importance of accessibility when instructing us but we encourage you to consider this as a key priority.
To learn more about this important subject visit the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative.
