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Making the business case for accessibility
The most compelling reason for making your website accessible is that it’s now illegal to have an inaccessible site. Your company can be sued if your services aren’t easily available to disabled people. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) explicitly mentions websites in its guidance. Go to what the law says for full details.
While the legal aspect provides a powerful argument, there are many good, business reasons for making your website accessible.
Boost your website’s business reach
An inaccessible site may exclude a significant number of your potential customers. Consider the following:
- over 10 million disabled people in the UK with a combined spending power of £80 billion. Source: – Department of Work and Pensions
- around 6 million people in the UK have dyslexia, of whom approximately 4 million are severe cases – Source, The Dyslexia Institute
- many millions of people have ‘invisible’, often age-related, issues they are reluctant to draw attention to, such as difficulty or discomfort using a mouse, short-sightedness, colour-blindness and memory, language or literacy difficulties – Source, AbilityNet research
- inaccessible websites may exclude those who use older browsers, PDAs, WAP phones, WebTV or computers behind a firewall.
Improve your site for every visitor
Research recorded by ‘The Web - Access and Inclusion for Disabled People’ DRC report 14 April 2004 shows that all visitors to an accessible website find it approximately 35 per cent quicker and easier to use than an inaccessible website.
This ‘usability bonus’ can be clearly seen in Legal & General’s website. Since relaunching www.legalandgeneralgroup.com early 2006 the organisation have seen very significant benefits in a number of areas. The following impressive figures were presented by David Rhys Wilton, Legal & General website manager, when he spoke at the BSI PAS 78 launch event in London on 8 March 2006.
- 95 per cent increase in online life quote requests
- 90 per cent increase in online life insurance sales
- 100 per cent return on investment in 5-6 months
- an estimated saving of 200k annually on site maintenance (representing a 66 per cent saving)
- speed and effort for managing content has reduced from an average of 5 days to 0.5 days for each job
- 30 per cent increase in natural (not paid for) search engine traffic
- significant improvements in Google rankings for all target keywords
- time for a page to load reduced by 75 per cent
- additional 13,000 visitors each month thanks to improved browser compatibility (including PDAs, mobiles, Blackberry and other hand held devices)
- no complaints since site relaunch
- original goal of 100 per cent return on investment in under 12 months could be achieved in 5 months.
Good publicity
Once you achieve a recognised level of accessibility on your site, you can display a compliance logo such as one of the W3C logos or the widely acclaimed 'See it Right: UseAbility' logo. You can then generate publicity around this achievement and benefit from considerable favourable press coverage. AbilityNet are always pleased to assist in joint publicity with organisations whom we have helped with accessibility.
What the law says
It has been law to make your websites and applications accessible since 1999…
The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) states that it is unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person in any of the following ways:
- refusing to provide (or deliberately not providing) any service which it offers or provides to other members of the public
- providing service of a lower standard or in a worst manner; or providing service on unfavourable terms
- failing to comply with a duty to make reasonable adjustments (under section 21 of the Act) if that failure has the effect of making it impossible or unreasonably difficult for the disabled person to make use of any such service.
The duty to make reasonable adjustments
In the DDA the key significant phrase for website design is that of ‘reasonable adjustment’.
For any new project, it is reasonable to design in accessibility because extra costs are minimal. For existing applications or websites, it may be prohibitively expensive to address all the accessibility issues at once, so you need to decide on reasonable adjustments.
It is essential to have a plan of action detailing the steps you’ll take, and the timescales for achieving accessibility. In this way you can demonstrate that you are serious about making your site accessible to all.
The Act states:
From 1 October 1999, where a service provider offers services to the public, it has a legal duty to take such steps as it is reasonable for the service provider to have to take in all the circumstances of the case in the situations described immediately below. This duty is referred to in this Code as the duty to make reasonable adjustments.
A service provider may have to:
- change a practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of services
- provide an auxiliary aid or service if it would enable (or make it easier for) disabled people to make use of services.
For full details of the DDA visit www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/1995050.htm
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) published a Code of Practice to accompany the DDA in February 2003 which explicitly states that websites are covered by the Act:
“An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the Act.” p13 Code of Practice
The DRC website contains more information.
For more information:
- Email accessibility@AbilityNet.org.uk
- Phone 0800 269545
Related links
DDA compliance checks
At AbilityNet we can help you achieve DDA compliance whether you have one site or one hundred.
See it Right: Usability
AbilityNet has joined with the RNIB to enhance their popular 'See It Right' web accessibility logo.