A Worthwhile Accessibility Guide for Clients

The PAS 78 Guide has been released by the Disability Rights Commission and is a must for anyone commissioning a website. The document gives guidance on how to choose a Design Agency, how to manage the process and how to maintain the site once it is up and running.

A previous journal entry outlines the benefits of building an accessible site and this guide proves that with real figures.

A presentation given at the launch of the publication gave the following figures on the Legal and General site after it had been made accessible:

30% increase in natural search engine traffic
Significant improvements in our rankings in google for all target keywords
75% reduction in time to load a page
Browser compatibility - 13,000 visitors per month effected. not a single complaint
Accessible using PDA's, Mobiles, Blackberry and other hand held devices
Speed/Effort required to manage content reduced from and average of 5 days to 0.5 days per job

This is nothing new to web developers. The benefits of building accessible sites have been known to many for a while. What is good is that this document begins to allow decision makers to understand why accessibility matters.

There are countless web developers and agencies around but by choosing one with a commitment to web standards you can be sure that the site will perform well once it is launched. It also ensures that the quality of the code will be what you are expecting.

I would welcome and indeed pay for a quality mark administered by the Disability Rights Commission or the RNIB to accredit Digital Design Agencies. This document is a start as it will allow clients to ask the right questions and hopefully find competent, standards compliant Agencies.

To order a copy of PAS 78, contact BSI Customer Services quoting marketing reference code PAS78-U. The document is available in various alternative formats: Braille, easy read, accessible PDF, large print, audio, DAISY and Welsh.

Tel: 020 8996 9001
Fax: 020 8996 7001
Email: orders@bsi-global.com
Online: www.bsi-global.com/pas78