About accessibility

The web offers freedom and independence

Paul Bohman of WebAIM writes: "The web offers so many new opportunities to people with disabilities that are unavailable through any other medium. It provides a method for accessing information, making purchases, communicating with the world, and accessing entertainment that does not depend on the responsiveness of other people. The Internet offers independence and freedom."

"But this independence and freedom is only partially a reality. Too many websites are not created with web accessibility in mind. Whether purposefully or not, they exclude the segment of the population that in many ways stands to gain the most from the Internet. Only by committing to accessibility and providing for accountability, training, and technical assistance, can the web's full potential for people with disabilities become a reality."

Read Paul's Introduction to web accessibility on the WebAIM website.

Disabilities that affect use of the web

There are five main groups of disabilities that affect use of the web. These are:

It is important to understand how these disabilities affect people's use of the web. There are many online resources that discuss these impairments, provide an insight into the adaptive technologies used by some disabled people, and provide tutorials and tips on accessible web design. See our resources page for more information.

Accessible design is the right thing to do

Accessibility and the law

In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) makes it unlawful to design web pages that fail to be accessible to the disabled. The relevant provision of the Act is Section 24 which says:

24 Goods, services and facilities

(1) It is unlawful for a person who, whether for payment or not, provides goods or services, or makes facilities available, to discriminate against another person on the ground of the other person's disability or a disability of any of that other person's associates:

(a) by refusing to provide the other person with those goods or services or to make those facilities available to the other person; or
(b) in the terms or conditions on which the first-mentioned person provides the other person with those goods or services or makes those facilities available to the other person; or
(c) in the manner in which the first-mentioned person provides the other person with those goods or services or makes those facilities available to the other person.

(2) This section does not render it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the ground of the person's disability if the provision of the goods or services, or making facilities available, would impose unjustifiable hardship on the person who provides the goods or services or makes the facilities available.

Legal requirements for accessible design

As you can see, the legislation does not spell out the requirements for accessible web design. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is responsible for assisting organisations to comply with the legislation. The Commission has indicated that Australian organisations will best meet their legal obligations by following the design guidelines specified in the Web Content Accessibilility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG).

The Commission have also said that publishing information in formats such as PDF or Flash, without providing an accessible alternative, may lead to complaints of discrimination.

For more information, see the Advisory notes on web accessibility on the Commission's website.

Legal precedent in Australia

Australia has the unfortunate distinction of being the first country in the world where a legal case was brought and won against a web content provider on the grounds that their website was inaccessible to the disabled.

The case was brought by Bruce Maguire against the Sydney Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (SOCOG). Maguire, who is blind, was unable to access certain parts of the Olympic Games web site - the sports index and results tables - because the site designers failed to provide text alternatives for images and image maps used on the site. He was awarded $20,000 compensation by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in August 2000. You can read the decision in Maguire vs SOCOG on the web.

Accessibility and ethics

We live in a country where non-discrimination and the equal right to participate are held as strong moral values. Accessible web design is an expression of those values and is seen as the moral or ethical thing to do. Organisations that seek to demonstrate social responsibility will do so by creating highly accessible websites.

Business benefits of accessibility

There a numerous benefits that businesses can derive from making online resources accessible. These include:

These and other business benefits are discussed by Andrew Arch and Chuck Letourneau in Business benefits of accessible web design on the W3C website.