Member News
By Sarah Southerton - 14th April 2004
The web has been around for 10 years, yet within this short space of time it has managed to throw up the same hurdles to access and participation by disabled people as the physical world.
Disability Rights Commission
Government efforts to provide services online have come under fire for their lack of accessibility for disabled people.
In its report published on Wednesday, the Disability Rights Commission found that, of the 1,000 public websites examined, 81 per cent failed to meet the minimum standards for disabled web access.
Only nine per cent of developers could claim expertise in this area and a further nine per cent had employed disabled people to test their sites for accessibility.
"The situation revealed by this investigation is unacceptable but not inevitable," said DRC chairman Bert Massie.
"The DRC is determined to ensure that this new powerful technology does not leave disabled people behind."
Publicity campaign
The report's authors called on ministers to launch a new publicity campaign aimed at website owners, highlighting the need to consider such issues as ease of access for the disabled.
In addition, the government faced calls to collect data on the scale of the problem and how the private sector is addressing it online, and to develop guidance on the best practice in this area, as well as a formal accreditation process.
The report found that current schemes "are fragmented, not sufficiently well known and do not cover everyone".
"The web has been around for 10 years, yet within this short space of time it has managed to throw up the same hurdles to access and participation by disabled people as the physical world," Massie added.
"But it is an environment that could be made more accommodating to disabled people at a relatively modest expense."
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.