Re: International perspective

Donna

You probably don't remeber me but we have spoken on the phone before, you =
were extremely helpful.

I belive Julie is coming up to Lancashire in February to speak at an =
Accessibility  conference I am also presenting at!

Anyway, do you know where I can find the latest versions of the governments=
 accessibility policy?

Also, the part of the disability law in the UK which pertains to Accessibil=
ity?

One more, anything referring to the fact that all academic institions have =
to be accessible by this coming September?

Thanks

<<< Donna Smillie <dms(at)zetnet.co.uk>  1/24 12:40a >>>
Thanks for kicking things off, John - I was debating how (and whether!) to
do that myself. <g>

Quite a lot happening in the UK (and elsewhere in Europe) re accessibility.=

Last September, the European Parliament published a Communication on
accessibility, formalising the European Union's commitment to accessibility=

on the web, starting with government and public sites (see
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/citizens/accessibility/good=
/
index_en.htm).  Then in November, the UK Government published version 2 of
its guidelines for UK central government websites - accessibility roughly =
on
the level of the WAI "A" standard is now mandatory for all new and
redesigned central government websites.  Similar guidelines for local
authority websites are expected later this year or early next year, but =
many
local authorities are already looking at the accessibility of their sites,
and doing something about it.

On the commercial side, a growing number of companies, and a growing =
number
of web designers in the UK, are focusing on accessibility - some seeing it
as something that can give them an edge over their competitors, which is =
an
interesting development!

There are still many in the UK who don't really know about accessibility
issues on the web, but the government's UK Online initiative, which aims =
to
get *everyone* in the UK online by, I think, 2005, is beginning to create =
a
growing awareness of what that could mean.  Current figures indicate that,
in a population of approx 60 million, around 2 million have a sight =
problem
and something like 8.5 million have some form of disability (including
things like dyslexia, colour blindness, etc, as well as those conditions
more commonly referred to as "disabilities").  Even when you scale these
figures down to remove very young and (perhaps) very old, that's still a =
lot
of people who, if they're not already online, could be coming online in =
the
next few years, and an awful lot of possible customers that a growing =
number
of companies don't want to exclude from their websites!

I'd better come clean here - I work for the Royal National Institute for =
the
Blind, providing advice to companies and organisations who want to improve
the accessibility of their websites, so I'm definitely on the "converted"
side of things. :-)  But I'd be the last to claim (and the first to deny!)
that I know it all (who does in the field of web design?) and technology
moves so fast, I'm always keen to learn new techniques for achieving
accessible sites, since I can then pass those techniques on to the people
who come to us for advice.  That's one of the reasons I joined this list.
I'm here to pick your brains! <g>

Regards,
Donna

http://www.rnib.org.uk/

----- Original Message -----
From: John Foliot - Another 4:00 AM Web Thing <foliot(at)fouram.com>
To: Andrew McFarland <aamcf(at)aamcf.co.uk>; <aware-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 9:58 PM
Subject: International perspective


> Andrew,
>
> I see by your address you are joining us from the UK...
>
> What is the status over there?  I know the UK governemnt is on a big =
"Best
> and Brightest" push, and from what I've read they actually appear to be
> pretty forward thinking.  How does accessibility play over there?  Are
there
> mandates or guidleline for governmental sites?  What about private
> industry... how aware are they (no pun intended) of the issues?  What
about
> the development community in general?  How do they react (seriously
> interested or rolling of eyes?)
>
> Anybody out there from other locales?  Australia? (when you wake up... I
> appreciate there's a time difference) Other EU countries?  South =
America?
> Come on... speak up




                       =20

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