Meet your legal obligations and reach 10 million more people

Website Auditing & Accreditation by Shaw Trust

£80billion is the estimated purchasing power of the 10 million UK adults with a disability.

It is a legal requirement that websites, extra- and intra-nets, comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (and, in the public sector, the Disability Equality Duty).

People with certain disabilities find it difficult or impossible to access, navigate or read from a computer screen if information is not presented correctly: for instance blind or visually-impaired people often use screen-reader software that speaks page content but if that content is not appropriately formatted they may still be unable to hear it.

Shaw Trust’s Web Accessibility Service can help ensure that websites are fully accessible to the disabled and compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.

By reviewing and accrediting sites, Shaw Trust already helps hundreds of organisations, including Coca Cola and the British Standards Institute to reach new customers and comply with the law.

Shaw Trust’s Website Accessibility Auditing Service tests websites technical compliance, coupled with a full user testing programme undertaken by people with a range of disabilities including: blindness, visual impairment, colour blindness, deafness; dyslexia, mobility impairment and learning difficulties.

The testing team are all users of assistive technologies that include voice activation, magnification, switch access, keyboard only and the screen reader software which converts web text to speech for people with a visual impairment. The team have proved very popular with visiting clients, to whom they are able to demonstrate at first hand the disadvantages of inaccessible websites and the huge benefit of enabling technology that renders sites accessible to people with disabilities.

A full Shaw Trust website audit and report costs less than £4,500. Shaw Trust also offers User, Template and Applications testing, as well as training in Web Accessibility Awareness and Assistive Technology.

Shaw Trust’s accessiblity services?

Shaw Trust provides comprehensive accessibility auditing and accreditation. The process is endorsed by GAWDS (Guild of Accessible Web Designers). Sites and applications for which organisations seek Shaw Trust Web Accreditation undergo a technical audit and are manually tested by an **experienced team of disabled users covering no vision, low vision, colour blindness, deafness, dyslexia, impaired mobility and learning difficulties. Every team member is an experienced assistive technology user who understands the frustration of being unable to access pages that do not take account of their needs.

This combination of automated and manual testing is advocated by the Disability Rights Commission and promoted in the PAS 78 Guide to Commissioning Accessible Websites as providing the highest level of assurance that a site is accessible to all users regardless of ability.  Shaw Trust’s testing is in line with W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendations, adhering to WCAG 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). 

Shaw Trust Accessible accreditation confirms AA standard and Shaw Trust Accessible Plus accreditation confirms achievement of higher standards.

Quality Control is in line with British Standard BS EN ISO 13407:1999: Human-Centred Design Processes for Interactive Systems, which represents the standard for accessibility. 

After delivery of Shaw Trust’s full Audit Report there is a 6-month window for the customer to make necessary adjustments. Re-testing is then carried out before the client receives a supplementary re-test report. Shaw Trust’s awards carry electronic certification validation clickable from the home page of the client’s site.

**Adaptive technologies

Shaw Trust’s accessibility testing is conducted manually using a range of adaptive technology (hardware and software designed to facilitate the use of computers by people with disabilities) including:

JAWS: a screen reader used by blind people to access Web pages
ZoomText: a screen reader and magnification application used by those with partial sight
Dragon Naturally Speaking: voice-activated software used by those who do not use a conventional input device such as a keyboard or mouse;
Switch Access: used by those with severe mobility impairments to input commands to a computer
Keyboard Only: some users with mobility impairments have difficulty making precise movements required by pointing devices such as a mouse, so a keyboard is used as the exclusive input device.

Accessibility checks are also undertaken with a number of popular Web browsers.

Manual checks are carried out to assess the suitability of pages for those with colour blindness and dyslexia. 

Checks are also made on ease of reading in line with the Plain English Campaign, to aid comprehension by those with a range of learning disabilities including dyslexia.

Media are checked to ensure that appropriate alternatives are in place i.e. captioning of alternative text option to allow access for deaf or hearing-impaired users.

Visit www.healthyworklife.org.uk/web_accessibility (Shaw Trust)

Contact:  Cam Nicholl, Shaw Trust
                07973 234 469
                cam.nicoll@shaw-trust.org.uk
                or call 0300 30 33 120