Web Site Accessibility Blog

Not a good month for Accessiblity in the UK. No sooner do I write an entry about Disney UK going to a new, inaccessible website, than I start going through my news archives and see this story:

Only 3% of public UK websites fully comply with the minimum standard of accessibility.

Apparently, in a study commissioned by the government, the government found out that it is the biggest culprit in not creating accessible web sites. Here are the results of the study:

Out of 436 public sector websites surveyed;

• 10% pass some but not all of the criteria under the standard,
• 17% “marginally fail” to meet the guidelines,
• 70% fail.

The largest oversight is the simple text equivelant for images, the infamous “Alt Attribute”. The second-most overlooked item was the lack of information explaining the relationship of frames and the website.

The EU has established a goal of 2010 to have cross-governmental accessibility in web sites. This study was the first step in identifying the problems and creating a solution to meet that goal. Sounds like you have a way to go, but congrats on facing the problem.