The Disability Rights Commission is an independent statutory body responsible for advising the Government on the effectiveness of disability discrimination legislation. Representing the interests of Britain's 9.8 million disabled people, the DRC is empowered by law to conduct formal investigations that meet these aims.In April 2004 it published the results of the first such formal investigation into web sites, finding that most organisations breach guidelines on making sites accessible to disabled users and risk legal action under disability discrimination laws.The investigation, carried out by the Centre for Human Computer Interaction at London's City University, involved testing sites in the public and private sectors for technical compliance with Version 1.0 of the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).Of the 1,000 sites tested, 808 (81%) failed on automated testing to reach the minimum WCAG standard for accessibility, known as Level A; only two web sites conformed to Level AA; and no web site conformed to the highest standard, Level AAA.The DRC's report highlighted a gap in the knowledge of both those who commission web sites and those who develop them: they are aware of the WCAG guidelines and the importance of the issue – but both parties still fail to apply accessibility.So the DRC has commissioned the British Standards Institution to fill that gap with new guidance, which will be produced in the form of a Publicly Available Specification (PAS).A PAS is not a full British Standard but is developed using a similar process. It can be introduced more quickly because it doesn't need consensus among experts. The end result is guidance, not a standard, and it is subject to review in less than two years. But a PAS can become a standard over time, depending on how it is accepted.The DRC says the PAS will remind web developers of the vital importance of web standards. The document will describe the standards that web sites should conform to. It will also tackle many of the myths and confusions surrounding web accessibility, including, for example, the role of automated tools, how to validate the web code, quality assurance and benchmarking, and how and when to involve disabled people in the design lifecycle.OUT-LAW spoke to Stephen Beesley, Senior Web and Software Developer with the DRC, and asked whether the PAS will compete with or complement WCAG."We're not looking to replace the WCAG guidelines by any means," he said. "The PAS document will set out good practice and make reference to WCAG and other standards. It will describe the role of standards, software tools and user testing within an overall development cycle."We put to Beesley that such issues were mentioned in last April's report; but he explained that the DRC had been disappointed by the lack of action in response to the report. It raised general awareness, he said; but too few organisations acted on it. So this appears to be the DRC's next step towards demystifying web accessibility.The PAS will collect all the important information into one document that can be understood by managers and developers alike. "You'll read the document and you'll see the place for standards, the place for software tools, the place for user testing," he said. "It's the first time all these things have been brought together in one place."Beesley reckons the final document will run to about 30 pages. It may or may not recommend a particular level of accessibility on the WCAG scale – which is something the DRC has always resisted to date. While some criticise this as showing a lack of conviction, the DRC's view has been that recommending a particular level of conformance on the WCAG scale is dangerous. At a public meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group last October, DRC Commissioner Michael Burton commented: "It's not about whether you meet Level A or Level AA. You could satisfy Level AA and still be in breach of the law so we don't want to mislead people."Beesley also confirmed that the level of detail will not extend to, for example, the correct uses of acronym and abbreviation tags when marking up a web page in HTML – a source of some confusion among web developers trying to interpret WCAG. "The focus will be outcomes, not processes," he said, echoing Burton's comments last year.But the PAS will make reference to WCAG, a set of guidelines that date from 1999 and that have never been superseded – although WCAG Version 2.0 is due this year from the Web Accessibility Initiative. Beesley confirmed that, should WCAG Version 2.0 require any changes to the PAS, an update can be published quickly – an advantage of the PAS approach over traditional British Standards.OUT-LAW also spoke to Julie Howell, the Royal National Institute of the Blind's Digital Policy Development Manager, who was commissioned by the BSI as the Technical Writer for the PAS project. She has written a first draft that will go to a steering group of invited experts and then a review panel.Howell said that Judy Brewer, the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative Domain Leader, has been invited to joint the review panel. Howell said, "In my mind, it would be absolutely pointless to move forward without buy-in from the key accessibility organisations from around the world, including the WAI."But it's not just WCAG that will be covered in the PAS: standards for Cascading Style Sheets, XHTML (eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language), and also usability standards will be referenced, says Howell – although, like Beesley at the DRC, she was keen to stress that the PAS will not be a technical document. "It's all about processes," she said. "For those who understand web accessibility, the PAS won't say anything new." Instead, it targets those who are confused by the issue. "Developers may also find it useful to show to their clients," she observed, pointing out that clients are more likely to listen because following the PAS could help to demonstrate legal compliance.This is because the DRC's endorsement of the PAS should bring it to the attention of any judge who has to decide whether an organisation complied with the Disability Discrimination Act when approaching web accessibility. While no judge has had to make such a decision in the UK to date, if that should change, formal DRC guidance tends to be influential in court proceedings on disability discrimination.The PAS is due to be published in the autumn and will be updated every two years.
