Public Sector Services
Throughout Europe Governments are committed to providing accessible online services. This is enshrined in National law.
The Disability Discrimination Act states:
"it is unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate
against a disabled person […] in refusing to provide, or
deliberately not providing, to the disabled person any service
which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to members of the
public". It includes "access to and use of information
services" among its examples of services to which the rules
apply. Consequently, both accessibility and
usability are legal requirements.
The DDA and PAS 78
This means that new websites and staff intranets should be developed to be accessible and usable for disabled users; and reasonable adjustments should be made to existing sites to ensure that they are accessible and usable for disabled users.
Useful guidance on commissioning a website or intranet is found in PAS 78 (a PAS is less formal than a British Standard, but it can become one over time). PAS 78 refers to the WCAG guidelines (it does not mandate a particular level, although it hints at Level AA as best practice) and encourages testing by disabled users.
Documents Online
many public sector websites have more content available in PDF copies of documents than on web pages.
All documents published on the web should be available in an accessible form. Publishing documents in HTML, the language of the web, makes it easier for all users to access the content. Documents converted by Riverdocs Bureau Service are output as structured accessible HTML, typically to AA standards.
Let Riverdocs conversion servicest help you solve your web publishing problems.
