Accessibility and usability

There are good commercial and ethical reasons for making your website accessible and usable for disabled internet users. In the UK, there is also a legal reason.

OUT-LAW Guides (UK law)

• Disabled access to web sites under UK law: an overview
  This guide explains how the Disability Discrimination Act applies to your website and also the relevance of the law to guidelines from W3C's WAI .
• Legal reasons to make intranets, extranets and software accessible
  Employers have duties to ensure that these electronic tools are accessible to staff.

Recent OUT-LAW News

• Web accessibility: new guidance from BSI and DRC
• W3C plans to boost web accessibility for mobiles
• Web accessibility for screen magnifier users
• Accessible, usable products from British Standards
• Labour wins on web accessibility

Useful links

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
• Understanding WCAG 2.0
• Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• How WCAG 2.0 Differs from WCAG 1.0
• Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0
• How to Update Your Web Site from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0
• How to Meet WCAG 2.0: A Customizable Quick Reference
• WCAG Overview
• Draft BS 8878 (a draft British Standard)

Guest contributions

• Improving accessibility for motor impaired users

Contact one of our lawyers

We can help if you need help understanding how accessibility laws here and abroad will impact on your services. Or you may want help with the wording of an agreement that your organisation is signing with another. What indemnities are reasonable to expect, for example?

Or maybe you just want some recommendations for usability and accessibility specialists to work on your site.

You may also benefit from OUT-LAW Compliance, a service that provides a check of your website by our IT lawyers for compliance with various e-business laws for a fixed fee. Part of this service includes a check of your site's accessibility.

Struan Robertson
Biography
email Struan
+44 (0) 141 249 5422

Jon Fell
Biography
email Jon
+44 (0) 121 626 5719

Useful links

• Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• Disabiltiy Rights Commission's Code of Practice on Rights of Access to Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises (large Word document)
• European Commission Communication of 2001 regarding Accessibility of Public Web Sites and their Content
• European Parliament resolution of 2002 on the Commission communication
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (from W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative)
• The Usability and Accessibility Working Group
• OUT-LAW's own accessibility statement