How the DDA applies to websites

Many banks and other financial organisations are confused and concerned about the latest requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), due to come into force on 1st October 2004. 

The duties of the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) originally came into effect in December 1996 and brought in measures to prevent discrimination against disabled people.  Part III of the Act was introduced on October 1999 and states that where a business provides goods, facilities and services to the general public it has a legal duty to take reasonable steps to make these services available to disabled people.  This Act was accompanied by a Code of Practice created by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC).  The Act itself makes no mention of websites and there have been legal arguments over whether a website is a 'product' which is not covered by the Act or a 'service' which is. 

Similar debates have taken place round the world and there was a much trumpeted case (Maguire v The Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games) in Australia where it was found that the Committee had been in breach of the Australian Disability Discrimination Act 1992 as a result of its failure to provide (among other things) an accessible website to which Mr Maguire who was blind could have access.  The conclusion in Australia was that meeting the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Website Accessibility Initiative (WAI) priority 1 checkpoints would be regarded as complying with their disability discrimination legislation.

In the UK, the DRC announced its first formal investigation into website accessibility in March 2003 (report yet to be published) and clearly regards websites as within its remit.  Neither the DRC nor its Codes of Practice are technically 'statements of law' and interpretation of the Act remains the prerogative of the courts.  However, in practice, having followed their advice is usually regarded as evidence that people have acted reasonably.
As with health and safety legislation in the UK, the courts will decide on an individual basis whether service providers are in breach of their legal obligations.  Despite the lack of legal clarity, we believe that failing to take appropriate action to make websites accessible (by 1 October 2004 at the latest) will, at the very least, result in costly litigation, adverse publicity and lost business.

How understanding your users and their abilities (or disabilities) will help ensure an accessible design

The DDA defines a disabled person as someone with a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.  Not all disabilities, as defined under the Act, affect the way people access the Internet. 

In order to ensure that your website is accessible to your customers, or potential customers, it is important that you understand their abilities (or disabilities) and their assistive technology.  This way you will be in a better position to accurately identify their requirements and ensure your website design can support them.   For example: 

• Visual impairment

  includes people with little or no vision, as well as colour blindness.  Visually impaired users typically either customise their browser settings (e.g. change colour settings) or use an assistive technology (e.g. screen reader or screen magnification software).  Therefore these users will require, for example, a website where they can customise their colour settings and contains code (e.g. HTML) that is compatible with their screen reader software.
  
  

• Hearing impairment

  includes people who are deaf and those who have partial hearing and may use a hearing aid.  A website with streaming audio, such as a news broadcast, will require captions or alternative content that meet the needs of hearing impaired users. 

Where a person has been deaf from birth, sign language is likely to be the first language.  Sign language is very different from the English language, having its own syntax, lexicon and grammar.  As a result, users of sign language may experience difficulties in understanding some text.  Therefore these users will require a website that is written in Plain English.

• Motor impairment

  is an extremely broad category and includes people with a range of physical disabilities, such as impairments in upper limb mobility, manual dexterity or physical co-ordination.  Some people who experience problems with manual dexterity may still use a mouse.  These users will require buttons and controls that are large enough to select, as well as adequate space around these screen items.  Some people, not only those with motor impairments, may prefer to use their keyboard to navigate a website.  These users require a website that is accessible by keyboard only and does not rely on the mouse for navigation.
  
  

• Cognitive impairments

  also cover a wide range including learning difficulties, dyslexia and epilepsy.  Learning difficulties includes people with problems with literacy, poor information technology skills and problems with understanding information in general.  The extent to which this occurs will depend on the severity of the learning difficulty, which is often categorised as mild, moderate or severe.  Many people with mild learning difficulties regularly use websites, often at work.  Access may be improved for those with mild to moderate learning difficulties by making sure simple straightforward language is used.  Those with more severe learning difficulties may require additional support, perhaps even an alternative site. 

By understanding your users, their capabilities and needs and following a User Centred Design approach you will be able to develop websites which are both usable and accessible.  Many of the features which create barriers for people with disabilities can also create barriers or unnecessary difficulties for a wider user group, for example allowing customers to navigate your website using a keyboard only. 

How to ensure accessible online banking sites

1. Use existing guidelines

   There are a number of accessibility guidelines that are widely available. 

These include, but are not limited to:

1. W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (www.w3.org/WAI/)
2. International Standard Technical Specification (ISO TS 16071 - Guidance on accessibility of human computer interfaces)
3. RNIB (www.rnib.co.uk)
4. British Bankers Association (BBA) Guidelines
5. British Dyslexia Association (www.bda-dyslexia.org.uk)
6. BBCi Accessibility Report (www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/bbci/websites.shtml)

 2.  Develop in-house accessibility guidelines

• usability/accessibility experts
• decision makers for websites
• designers
• developers

3.  Integrate accessibility into your corporate culture

Develop checklists to ensure that your website complies with your accessibility guidelines at the design phase (e.g. interface design), coding phase and testing phase.  The designers, developers and testers can use the appropriate checklist to conduct assessments as part of their day to day tasks.  Alternatively, you can recruit interested individuals in-house to become accessibility champions.

4.  User testing 

This article first appeared in Financial World.

February 2004