Website accessibility

Complying with the law on website accessibility

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) was passed to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities and ensure that they have fair access to goods and services. .

Businesses must make reasonable adjustments to the way they deliver their services so disabled people can use them. You can't, because of a person's disability, refuse to provide them with a service that you are offering to other people, and they can take legal action if they feel they are being discriminated against. If you provide services to the public, you have a duty to consider making changes to the things that could make it difficult for disabled customers.

This includes ensuring that people with disabilities can access your website.

1. To ensure that your website complies with accessibility standards, it should satisfy at least priority 1 or level A of the * World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) conformance levels.

2. You are required to take 'reasonable' steps to make the site accessible - your business' financial resources will be taken into account in this regard..

3. You can get more advice by visiting the dedicated Disability Rights Commission (DRC) website. The * Directgov site also features a range of information about the DDA and making sure that your products and services are accessible.

4. Finally, the legal information service * Out-Law has a useful feature explaining web accessibility in practical terms.