Web Site Accessibility: What Logo Will We Use Today?
By Witt, Neil; McDermott, Anne; British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 45–56Publication Date: 2004
Paper discusses how the United Kingdom (UK)’s Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) has amended the Disability Discrimination Act to ensure that developers of higher education websites take steps to ensure that their sites are accessible. Compliance guidelines are provided by the World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, while software tools such as Bobby are offered that provide developers with feedback on overall site accessibility. The authors contend, however, that following the recommendations of these tools alone will not guarantee SENDA compliance. An evaluation of academic websites in the UK sites has shown significant differences between levels of compliance that developers claim and the levels of accessibility that are actually achieved. The authors contend that these differences demonstrate a lack of understanding of the knowledge that is necessary to create accessible websites. The authors discuss their theory on how web developers’ reliance on software accessibility tools has led to the inaccessibility of academic websites.
Published by: Blackwell Publishing, Incorporated (Website: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com)
British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Web Site: http://www.becta.org.uk )
