Segala News & Events - Press Releases

Agency Republic partners with Segala for Web Accessibility accreditation

Released: 27 April 2005

Agency Republic, the digital advertising agency voted Marketing’s ‘Digital Agency of the Year’, has signed a strategic partnership with Segala M Test for independent accreditation support to ensure projects for their client O2 UK comply with web accessibility standards.

“We create and deliver powerful digital marketing ideas that transform businesses, build brands and generate commercial results,” explains Adam Johnston, Technical Director of Agency Republic. “As part of this process, we take full responsibility and ownership for technical and accessibility standards. Segala provide an independent seal of approval for web accessibility for O2 UK websites.”

Segala M Test (Segala) will work with Agency Republic to ensure that design techniques are not just in line with the current WAI ‘AA’ accessibility guidelines but also with new ones as they are developed. Segala provides a branded logo which acts as a seal of approval for O2’s design agency roster.

“Agency Republic is an award-winning digital agency with experience in designing accessible websites,“ explains Paul Walsh, CEO and co-founder of Segala M Test. “Despite this experience, they see the value in the Segala brand for conformance and the independent seal of approval that is placed on websites developed for O2.”

Segala is currently one of only two organisations in the UK to provide this stamp of approval and is the only organisation in Ireland to do so. The company is building an accessibility portal aimed at educating the UK and Irish markets on the importance of accessibility and the benefits that can be gained and will be kept up to date with local industry news.

Note to editors

About Segala

Segala is a worldwide independent authority and provider of web accessibility and mobile content auditing, testing, certification and Trustmark services. Segala provides accessibility conformance evaluations, audits and certification for web and mobile publishers, developers and agencies to satisfy usability and accessibility guidelines and legislation.

Segala is a sponsor member of the W3C Content Label Incubator Group (XG-CL), a worldwide initiative to develop content labelling standards for the web. As an Associate member of the W3C, Segala also participates in the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and is a Founding Sponsor of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI). Segala is the first testing and compliance specialist worldwide to become an associate member of the GSMA. Segala has global headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. For further information visit www.segala.com.

About the Segala-Certified™ Trustmark

Segala is the first company worldwide to make a machine-readable content label available for web accessibility and mobile content by providing a visible Trustmark that is detectable by search engines and browsers. The Segala-Certified Trustmark provides a branded, certified and verifiable method that enables search engines and browsers to develop systems for users to filter and trust content that contain this Trustmark. It is the first Trustmark worldwide to be based on the method proposed by members of the W3C XG-CL activity and which is expected to exceed the previous content label standard, PICS, currently used by Microsoft Internet Explorer. O2 is the first major organization worldwide to adopt the Segala Trustmark as standard throughout its online content.

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