Following the introduction of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and the accompanying 2002 Code of Practice, it has now become a legal requirement for a website to provide the same level of service to disabled users as other members of the public.

In practice this means that websites must be fully accessible to disabled users who may have a visual, hearing or physical impairment - or run the risk of potentially damaging legal action.

An investigation into 1000 websites conducted by the Disability Rights Commission in 2003, found that 81% of the websites studied failed to meet the most basic of accessibility requirements. This makes sites difficult and in some cases impossible to use when users have certain disabilities. A severe warning was issued that organisations would face legal action under the DDA and the threat of compensation payments for failure to comply.

No legal action has yet been taken in the UK against a website using the 1995 Act – but when organisations such as the RNIB have raised compliance issues with site providers, the companies involved have made the necessary changes in order to avoid further legal action and to maintain anonymity. Other accessibility cases have however been made successfully in the US and Australia.

In order to help safeguard your online investment and reputation, Majestic Interactive conduct our development work in accordance with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We adhere to the W3C Priority One accessibility checkpoints as a minimum and Priority Two and Three checkpoints where necessary. Majestic also provide consultancy services to assess the accessibility level of your current website and make recommendations required to improve compliance.