EU Accessibility Legislation to go for WCAG 2.0?
I noticed over on Out-Law that there was a suggestion that legislation for accessible websites could be introduced across the EU:
Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding has for the first time talked of a ‘European Disability Act’ that could compel EU nations to adopt web accessibility rules together so that all of Europe’s websites become accessible at the same rate.Out-Law.com: European Commission floats idea of web accessibility legislation
As indicated by the headline, we shouldn’t take this to mean that some pan-European accessibility legislation is going to be brought in imminently, but rather that the EU is taking seriously the problems of web accessibility faced by disabled users and is looking to shift to have a more consistent and coherent approach across the EU in order to prevent sites discriminating against, and in some cases effectively locking out those with disabilities.
The UK already has the Disability Discrimination Act which relates to this sort of thing (which I’ve covered before) which impacts both the public and private sectors; the EU already have the 2006 Riga Declaration on e-inclusion which basically states that public sector websites must achieve an appropriate level of conformance, and now we’ve got the potential of something else.
It’s also noteworthy that specific mention is made of the new accessibility guidelines, showing that there is an understanding that the new guidelines (published December 2008) are significantly better than WCAG 1.0 which dates back to 1999. This, together with the COI‘s acceptance of WCAG 2.0 as a standard for the UK public sector shows that the time has come for WCAG 2.0: it’s no longer something we should just be thinking about, we should be using it now.
We should in my view encourage the European-wide adoption of the global web accessibility standard, the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We should do it together and in step so that the online services industry can reap economies of scale and the users get a decent and reliable framework. I believe the way we should do this is to develop together with stakeholders a European Disability Act.Viviane Reding speech
It’s really a shame that there needs to be such an accessibility stick with which to beat people to force them to make their sites accessible to disabled users. If you don’t care whether or not your site is accessible to people with disabilities, then in my eyes, you’re a bit of a poor excuse for a human being. And if you’re a web designer who doesn’t include accessibility as standard in web design, then you shouldn’t claim that you’re a professional.
After all, this is supposed to be the 21st Century, and it’s not even as if accessibility is hard to achieve when properly built into a site in the first place (and even if it needs to be shoe-horned into a site once developed, it’s generally possible to make quite significant improvements without too much pain). But the idea that any individual, company, or organisation can be allowed to get away with producing websites which do not satisfy basic accessibility requirements is disgraceful.
It is discriminating against groups in society for no good reason. It’s the equivalent of sticking a sign on the front of your site saying “no blacks”. If you think that sort of overt discrimination on the grounds of race is wrong, then it’s time to stop tolerating it on the grounds of disability.
Gary Miller says:
October 5th, 2009 at 10:37 am
It’s about time! I personally would welcome such an initiative from the EU.
As for your own comments (e.g. “And if you’re a web designer who doesn’t include accessibility as standard in web design, then you shouldn’t claim that you’re a professional.”)?
Couldn’t you be a bit stronger please? It seems to me that the message just isn’t getting through to some morons.
What is it going to take I wonder??
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