One external design agency actually charged extra to make a site accessible.

What if UK web sites could be withdrawn from the .co.uk name space for failing to comply with UK legislation (such as the Disability Discrimination Act 2005)?

Alastair Revell
Managing Consultant
Revell Research Systems

Guidelines such as WAIG are guidelines not standards and the saying about being “for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of fools” is very apt here. The crucial issue is does the website work properly in the real world of browsers and assistive software. This requires testing with real users.

Nearly all current websites can be made accessible without changing the present “look and feel”. For the few (usually Flash heavy) sites where this is a real problem there is always the option of HTML alternatives. So the awkward client can still have his, or her, “experimental” design whilst you quietly make it as accessible as possible and provide alternatives where not possible.

I appreciate that the language and structure of the guidelines, as laid out on the W3C website, is not easy reading. I also appreciate that some people are not fully happy with the individual priorities awarded to certain issues. However the underlying concept is vital if we genuinely believe in an inclusive society.

Trying to think about your penultimate point referencing @vicky peterson. Sounds plausible but I’m not entirely convinced. If you are talking about passing the guidelines (which I admit is only an assumption on my part) then what about a page that passes all your criteria, but doesn’t have a site map/table of contents, or navigation different from other pages on the site, or that has a flickering decorative image, need I go on?

Secondly not everyone agrees implicitly on just how semantic code should be. No Code, is 100% semantic.

Then there’s the CMS, most modern CMS’s (even the free ones) create pretty standard valid code. I wouldn’t fancy being the poor mug who has to sift through every entry into the system to make sure that someone hasn’t misused a list at some point, or written an entry that uses too confusing a grammar for dyslexics etc.

To top it WCAG 2.0 looks to be a piece of rubbish. Maybe its time to set standards for screen readers as well and to give web developers the tools to work with screen reader developers like JAWS to create sites that are easier for blind users and browser developments to account for the colour blind. There’s such a wide range of disabilities to accommodate for and the current standards just don’t cut it.

@Runescape: My sites compliant (though it is suffering rot from neglect) (checked by GAWDS) as is one of my Clients. At that point though I ran off to the Corporate world of in house design. Where I was quickly told that Firefox users were none existent and WCAG was a myth. And this is a company that has over 6 billion in assets. So take a $2 million dollar project that flops after someone FINALLY takes notice of my head banging on the wall and the realisation that theres more then IE out there to be served and we have a new project starting with these targets in mind… Will it meet P2? Probably not but its a step in the right direction and you can only hit a director so hard.

@Autocrat: You are unfortunately correct, a lot of “web design agencies” don’t have a clue about accessibility. Why? Because a lot of agencies (in my experience in dealing with loads of them in the last 14 months) are in fact print agencies that have been on a one day training course in HTML. I’m always amazed if they produce a page that validates let alone meets P1.

@vicky petersen: Technically with CSS and a semantically coded page any design can be workable and still accessible (so long as you keep a decent contrast ratio).

What we need is a CSS-Accessible-Zen-Gardens to show that it can be done, look good and still meet WCAG p1,p2 at a minimum.