Paul Walsh is principal director of Web accessibility certification and mobile testing specialist Segala M Test, and also a committee member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body which sets and oversees Web standards and technologies. Segala M Test is developing a second edition of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines, which Walsh says should be less ambiguous and easer to implement
than the first version. It is this first version that created the commonly used website accessibility rating system - AAA is the highest, while the basic accessibility rating system - AAA is the highest, while the basic accessibility levels demanded by UK law fall somewhere between A and AA.
Walsh says Usability and accessibility are two similar terms in the world of technology — but they don't mean the same thing when it comes to website design. The distinction is important because there are serious financial, brand loyalty and legal implications to consider.
Applied to websites, Walsh says, usability means the ease with which visitors can access, navigate and generally make use of a site and its content. Research shows that users will persevere with a challenging site if the content is relevant and strong, but if they are made to work too hard or have to search for too long to find the information they need, they are less inclined to return.
Accessibility, on the other hand, means that people with disabilities can access and use internet sites, in some cases with special tools such as test-readers. And of course, there is also the issue of accessibility by handheld devices or over older slower connections.
Walsh says: Usability and accessibility should amount to the same thing and gall under a single methodology for design and development purposes
- but at present that is not the case and will not be for another 12 to 18 months, in his opinion, he believes that accessibility is not something that can be bolted-on
as an extra service — it needs to be part of a complete packaged solution. It is advisable to design a site with accessibility in mind from the start,
he says.
Robin Christopherson, of accessibility consultancy AbilityNet says the argument for making all websites accessible to disable people is actually an overwhelming economic one: If you make it accessible, you make it usable and it's good for business.
And disabled people represent significant spending power: there are some 1.6 million registered blind people in the UK, 1.5 million people with cognitive disorders, 3.4 million otherwise IT-disabled
people and 6 million with dyslexia (4 million severe). Together, they have an estimated £120bn in disposable income.
And Christopherson also points out that involving disabled testers from the start of a website design project leads to a better website overall, not just one that is accessible
. Research conducted for the Disability Rights Commission shows that those without disabilities find websites which have been designed to be accessible 35 per cent easier to use. That alone will have a dramatic impact on the bottom line.