E-Access Bulletin Live

A blind woman who is battling the Canadian government in the courts over the inaccessibility of its websites has said a new initiative to improve the sites does not move fast enough.

Donna Jodhan, a blind accessibility consultant, sued the Canadian government last year over the inaccessibility of its websites after she was unable to apply for a government job online. In December 2010 a judge ruled in favour of Jodhan but the government is appealing against the ruling, claiming that the judge exceeded his jurisdiction in finding a “system-wide failure” of government through its websites, when it was only Jodhan who was proved to be directly affected (see our January issue http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=532 ).

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) has now published a new standard on web accessibility for government agencies ( http://bit.ly/pYv4Jo ). Under a phased programme, agencies have until the end of the year to submit a report on their current state of accessibility. Inaccessible web sites will then have to be made accessible in stages, with home pages and pages providing “the most important information and services” ordered to comply by the end of February 2012; and all remaining pages by 31 July, 2013. All new web pages published after 1 October, 2011 must immediately conform, although exceptions will be allowed to all deadlines in circumstances where “exclusion for a period of time can be demonstrably justified.”

A government-wide compliance report will be released by the board at the end of February 2012, with updates published annually thereafter. If government bodies do not comply a range of sanctions are possible including suspension of public sector staff from web duties.

Jodhan told E-Access Bulletin she thought the release of the new guidelines was linked to her legal action, but that it was an inadequate response. “It does not go fast enough; their time frame is too long,” she said. “I think that a year would be more reasonable.”

She also questioned the government’s commitment to accessibility in appealing the 2010 decision in her case. “If the government feels that this is going to address the issues raised in my court case, then why is it spending all this money to appeal the decision that was handed down on in 2010?” she said.

Dates have now been set for the appeal of 15 and 16 November.

Jodhan suffered a minor disappointment in August when two of three disability organisations which had sought intervention status in her case had their requests turned down by the court.

These were the national blindness charity CNIB, the Canadian Council of Disabilities (CCD) and the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC) of which Jodhan herself was elected president in May of this year. In an August ruling, the AEBC was the only one granted intervener status, allowing it to speak in court about the wider implications of any decision taken.

Responding to this decision, Jodhan said: “These three organisations felt that they had a vital and vested interest in this case to represent other concerns on a broader level. We were all quite surprised that the other two were not granted similar status.” The two unsuccessful applicants would have offered a broader perspective to her case, Jodhan said, “but they can still help in other ways.”

Some blind web users may not have been able to buy tickets for next year’s London Olympics due to the partial inaccessibility of the tickets website, testing by the charity AbilityNet has found.
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The Law School Admissions Council (LASC) in the US has agreed to make its website fully accessible to blind and visually impaired users following legal action by the country’s National Federation of the Blind (NFB).

The NFB filed a lawsuit against LASC in 2009 claiming that the organisation’s website – used by nearly every US law school to accept student applications – violated the California Disabled Persons Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act (a California-based piece of discrimination legislation).

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The UK government Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has published a set of 10 principles for inclusive web design to highlight the importance of building websites that can be used by as wide a range of people as possible and drive forward e-accessibility.

Written as seven principles by Sandi Wassmer for web design company Copious – of which she is managing director – the ‘Ten Principles of Inclusive Web Design’ ( which can be viewed on the DCMS site – bit.ly/mfx9ax – or the Copious site:  bit.ly/lzsnOe ) were originally used to encompass and sit alongside existing web-based guidelines and best practice for building accessible and user-centred websites. Wassmer then co-wrote the government’s E-Accessibility Action Plan (available as a PDF here:  bit.ly/kEhUsx ) and included the seven principles in the appendices.
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By Jonathan Hassell

Many people struggle with reading text on websites, particularly those with dyslexia, vision impairments, Asperger’s syndrome, ADHD and the multiple minor impairments associated with ageing.

While web browsers do include facilities to help these users such as the ability to change text size or colour or use your own style-sheets, many people are not able to find or use the browser controls to take advantage of them.

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By Tristan Parker

Some council websites present elderly users with a range of problems which prevent them taking full advantage of the opportunities to access their local services online, according to new research from the University of Hertfordshire. This is a problem for older people, and a problem for councils too, since citizen ‘self-service’ over council websites is seen as a key way of helping local authorities save money on face to face services, crucial in these times of heavy public sector budget cuts.

‘An e-government case study of London’s older citizens’ was led by Dr Jyoti Choudrie, head of the university’s Systems Management Research Unit (SyMRU) ( bit.ly/e9utoc ), and Vivian Songonuga, a research student and staff member at the Royal National Institute of Blind People. It examined 30 local government sites across London, plus 179 questionnaire responses and a further series of focus group interviews.
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Website accessibility should be built into local authority software and IT systems procurement criteria, the leading annual review of all UK council websites has found.

More local authorities should also carry out user-testing on their websites using groups of people with disabilities, according to Better Connected 2011 ( bit.ly/hBOGUw ), conducted by the public sector Society of IT Management (Socitm).
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A three-month-old project using ‘crowdsourcing’ to improve the accessibility of websites for disabled people has already helped to solve problems with 26 sites, including those of the BBC and a large UK building society, E-Access Bulletin has learned.

The Fix the Web project ( www.fixtheweb.net ), which launched in November and was previewed in our September issue ( bit.ly/eQDmpC ), recruits volunteers to contact website owners on behalf of disabled internet users who encounter access problems.
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Two per cent of US adults – six million people – have a disability that makes it difficult or impossible for them to use the internet, according to new research on the technology habits and abilities of disabled US citizens.

The survey by the Pew Research Center ( bit.ly/i0hWaq ), a non-partisan body conducting social science research, also found that Americans with a disability are less likely than other adults to use the internet, with just 54% of US adults with a disability (around 45 million people) reporting themselves as going online, compared with 81% of non-disabled adults.

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The Canadian Federal Government is appealing against the recent court ruling which branded its websites not fully accessible to disabled citizens and ordered it to remedy the problem.

As previously reported in E-Access Bulletin ( see issue 132: www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=511 ), Donna Jodhan, a blind accessibility consultant, successfully sued the government over the inaccessibility of its websites after she was unable to apply for a government job online or access certain other information.
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