Having just launched the AAA website for Bicester Village, I scoured Google to try and find any other consumer websites with Level 3 compliance, with no success.

I did however see numerous web agencies advertising their expertise in accessibility, which made me wonder – were these paragons of accessible virtue practising what they preached? A bare minimum, for me, was that the website of the agency should pass Level 2 of WAI guidelines – the minimum EU recommendation.

The test, the sample

Typing the phrase “web accessibility” into Google lists a plethora of agencies. On the day of the test, the first seven were as follows:

1. System Concepts (www.system-concepts.com)
2. Web Credible (www.webcredible.co.uk)
3. Red Ant Design (www.redantdesign.com)
4. The Accessible Website Company (www.accessiblewebsites.co.uk/)
5. Spring Digital (www.springdigital.co.uk/)
6. Headscape (www.headscape.co.uk)
7. Tag2 (www.tag2.net)

The results

Out of the seven websites tested, FIVE fell short of the minimum criteria of Level 2. Spring Digital – self-proclaimed “website accessibility experts” according to their ad copy – did not even reach Level 1 accessibility compliance. A runaway winner of the wooden spoon.

Web Credible fared better, passing Levels 1 and 2 easily (using XHTML 1.0 code) and failing Level 3 only because of links not being separated.

The clear winner, however, was Red Ant Design, ticking all accessibility boxes, including Lynx, web standards, Level 3 compliance and XHTML 1.1 code. Not only that – the site is also easy to use, and easy on the eye. Reason to be impressed.

The Disability Rights Commission announced in October 2004 that it was prepared to back court cases regarding web accessibility, in so far as web sites breached Section 2 of the Disability Discrimination Act (UK).

Almost six months later, and it appears the threat was little more than hot air. Few if any FTSE100 sites have yet achieved true Level 2 compliance, the baseline set by EU guidelines, and indeed most fall well short of Level 1. This has been succinctly pointed out by research from NoMensa and a number of other reports, yet apart from minor cases settled out of court, no offender has been named and shamed.

Herein lies the clue: without the threat of financial penalty and/or public humiliation, no major company will bother to make life easier for users. It’s simply not in their DNA; in-house designers are either too set in their ways or too overworked, and agencies will only take an interest if they can charge for doing so.

So what are often simple changes to make in web practice go begging, along with the opportunity for better web practice and common web standards.