The RNIB has begun the first UK action on site accessibility. Action along these lines has been predicted by others. This is an important step by the RNIB in the promotion of accessible web design. By raising the possibility of legal action against web site, web designers now have a stick to match the carrot of creating an accessible web site.
The accessible web will not become the default for web sites without a few changes:
- Education of web professionals
- Financial motivation for site owners
From an educational perspective there are many sites out there that help to teach the “how” of accessible web design. Here are a couple to get started:
Learning new techniques is something that all web designers should be familiar with, after all how many “quality” professional web developers started out in web design? Education is something that should be undertaken by anyone who wants to make a professional career for themselves in any field, so I’m not going to talk further on that matter here.
The Big Issue (as seen from the financial trenches)
What’s the financial motivation? We’ve had the carrot of web accessibility for sometime now. If you can get a larger number of people to use your web site (such as people with visual impairments) then you can make a larger number of sales.
What’s the cost? The benefits haven’t moved a substantial number of web sites from being inaccessible to accessible! Let’s bring on the stick, the term in potentia. In other words inaccessible web sites may be seen as a future expense. An accessible web site may now be seen as a business benefit because it removes the threat of future lawsuits which cause these potential future expenses. Tesco.com has understood this point and when approached a few years ago by the RNIB created an accessible interface to their online store. Some companies will not have the foresight and will get stuck with the legal costs and the cost of redoing their web site.
By beginning to bring action against inaccessible web sites the RNIB has indicated that the risk factor inherent in having an inaccessible web site is real and growing. With this risk factor now clearly demonstrated the business case for creating a standards based and accessible web site is easier to make.