New British Standard Released
British Standards release draft on their first standard to address website accessibility
A draft British Standard for websites was released for public review and comment on Monday (1/12/2008). BS 8878 "Web accessibility - Building accessible experiences for disabled people - Code of Practice".
The new British Standard will give business owners new guidance for building and maintaining web content that is accessible to disabled people.
Julie Howell, chair of the cross-industry committee responsible for the draft Standard said, "There is an almost universal failure to create web experiences that can be used by disabled people".
The standard not only tackles public websites but also employee intranets and other online applications.
The draft says that the CEO of a business "should ensure that a department or specified role is responsible for the organisation's compliance with BS 8878" and the appointed person or department should also understand how disabled people access and use web content.
The draft explains the business case for accessibility; how to allocate responsibilities within an organisation; the impact of the Disability Discrimination Act; how disabled people use websites; how to choose technologies and how to contract with web developers or vendors of content management systems.
The draft tackles the issue of website testing both with automated tools and using disabled users. Also included is text which can be extracted and used in an organisation's accessibility or procurement statement.
The draft is available from
drafts.bsigroup.com/?i=245
Comments are invited until 1st February 2009 and the final Standard is expected to be published in summer 2009.
