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London calling on...www.london.gov.uk
Julie Howell, Campaigns Officer at the RNIB, reviews the Greater London Authority
website and assesses its accessibility. Online availability This move was in keeping with the Government's aim to make all Government services available electronically by 2005, and is very much in the spirit of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, that, since October 1999, has required web-based services to be accessible to people with disabilities. As if this wasn't enough, in September 2001, the European Commission adopted a Communication on improving the accessibility of public websites, supporting member states in adopting and implementing internationally recognised guidelines that enable people with disabilities and older people to use the internet more easily. With very clear legislative, Governmental and EU frameworks for accessible web design in place, I fully expected the Greater London Authority's website (www.london.gov.uk) to be a beacon of good practice in accessible design. I wasn't disappointed. Up to expectations The GLA site is striking in a number of ways. It contains a broad range of useful, up-to-the-moment information for Londoners that is presented in an easy-to-navigate manner. I had no trouble finding information on a range of interesting topics, from Asian London to biodiversity to events taking place over the summer in Trafalgar Square. The site's structure is helpful to the visitor, often a rare accomplishment on Government sites that seek to communicate vast quantities of information. But the most pleasing aspect of the site is the careful attention given to accessibility. Everyone can read the content on the GLA site because it has been designed to work, whoever you are, and however you access the internet. For example, the site works well if you are blind and reading the text with the help of synthesised speech software. It has also been designed in such a way that the person using the site can change the size of the text and the colours, should red on white prove to be difficult to read. RNIB encourages web designers to consider 'accessibility' in its broadest sense using the following definition: "accessible websites and systems are those that can be used by everyone, regardless of ability/disability, technology and circumstance." Rather than focusing on people with disabilities in particular, we ask web designers to think about creating websites that work, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever technology you are using and whether or not you have a disability. Designers can do this by following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative. The guidelines are available online at http://www.w3.org/wai. These guidelines enable designers to produce a single version of their website that supports potentially all visitors, regardless of their physical circumstances or the technology they are using. For example, a visitor could be blind and visiting the site using speech synthesis software loaded onto a personal computer, or visiting the site using a mobile phone or via a television, or may be unable to use their hands and navigating the web with the aid of speech recognition software. Whatever the technology, whatever the circumstance, adherence to the WAI guidelines should mean that everyone can use your site effectively. When Ability magazine asked me to review the GLA site I got straight on the phone to Peter Murphy, web manager at the GLA, to ask him about his experience of creating a website that everyone can use. On the agenda "Accessibility has been on our agenda for some time and was an essential requirement of our design brief", Murphy explained. "In Government, awareness of the needs of web users with disabilities has been heightened through the efforts of the Office of the e-Envoy and its guidelines and through general awareness of the DDA. Accessibility is definitely on the GLA¹s agenda." I asked Murphy if the site was as yet 100% accessible. "Not yet," he replied. "We got RNIB to review the site and they pointed out a few issues that are outstanding. For example, we could give better titles to some of our links, and we need to consider making some of our PDF (portable document format) files more accessible to screenreading technology. We plan to address these matters very soon." Design challenges I also had a chat with Paul Bishop of KPMG, the company responsible for designing and building the site on behalf of the GLA. I asked what the greatest design challenge was in creating an accessible site. "We were determined to create one version of the site that was accessible to everyone, but that was also visually appealing. This was surprisingly easy to do following the WAI guidelines. GLA wanted to brand the site so that it was fun and gave a dynamic impression of London. We were able to do this successfully without compromising the accessibility of the site, and had great fun in the process!". When asked if the project had been a useful learning experience for KPMG, Bishop replied: "Accessibility is now on everyone's agenda. So what we learnt building the GLA site will help us to create accessible, dynamic and fun-to-use sites for future clients." Julie Howell, Campaigns Officer (Accessible Internet), Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB), email: Julie.Howell@rnib.org.uk Julie leads RNIB's Campaign for Good Web Design, website: www.rnib.org.uk/digital Posted: 11 September, 2002
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