» Accessibility tests from the BBC

Nov 29 2006

Accessibility tests from the BBC

A nice article on the BBC’s website explains accessibility and what problems people have with non-accessible websites.

A blind person who works for the BBC was set the task of buying a book from Amazon, and her experience was very interesting.

Accessibility is a big thing, and we need to be thinking of this at the initial stages of web development, not as an after thought.

Here’s a nice finding from the UK’s Disability Rights Commission:

“If a site is accessible by a disabled user it is also a third quicker for an able-bodied person to complete tasks too”

Wayne Smallman Says:
November 30th, 2006 at 9:50 am
“There’s a technology called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) .. However, that’s quite a new technology, it’s only been around a couple of years, and a lot of designers are still very wary of using it.”

Maybe they ought to have spoken to someone with a little more authority on this matter? Leonie Watson seems not to be at the top of her game.

I covered this story when it was first run, which I strung out as a series of posts on web standards, web accessibility and the legality thereof.

There’s a long, long way to go yet, but things are definitely going to improve, there’s no doubting that…
Ben Says:
November 30th, 2006 at 9:53 am
Hi Wayne, yes I did chuckle to myself when I read that bit of the article!