Re: Credit Union Website Accessibility

Hi Suzanne,

in Australia the relevant legislation is the Disability Discrimination Act,
and there is an act with the same name in the UK. In each country the
Bankers' Association has produced their own documents about accessibility for
their members. In the US I am not certain but I believe that the Americans
with Disabilities Act is the most applicable law - according to the
Department of Justice in an amicus curiae brief, and other opinions, the act
is very likely to be applicable to websites as well as buildings (although as
far as I know this has not yet been tested by the supreme court, it seems
unlikely to me that they would not follow this interpretation).

If a site passes the Bobby test, including all the "manual" checks - i.e. you
test everything Bobby tells you must be tested manually, to the highest level
available (W3C triple-A I believe is the strictest test Bobby provides) then
it is reasonably ikely to be accessible to all.

In practise, it is not possible to know if a site is accessible to all, since
you can't test it with everyone. It is only possible to know if there are
still known accessibility barriers present in your site. Testing with one or
more automated accessibility testing tools is a good idea, but be aware that
tehre  are certain things they are not good at checking. (I have yet to see a
tool that can really test a site for compliance to any accessibility
standards I know of without a person having to do some thinking and
interpretation, including some for which that has been claimed).

I am not a lawyer. This is not a substitute for legal advice, and if you use
it instead of qualified legal advice you are making a big mistake.

This is also my personal opinion, and not a statement endorsed by W3C, any of
its members, or anyone but me.

And it may contain errors.

regards

Charles McCN

On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Suzanne Nikolaisen wrote:

  Hi everyone. Do any of you know of any links to sites
  about the law or guidelines set for credit union web
  accessibility? I am interested in information for both
  the US and International credit unions.

  I read a few messages back that ISP's or third parties
  providing website services/development are responsible
  for the accessibility of a website. Is this the same
  for ASP's? I am trying to gather some links to present
  to my managers about this.

  One more note, if a site passes at the CAST Bobby site
  (http://www.cast.org/bobby/) does it mean it's
  accessible? Or how does one know when a site is really
  accessible to all?

  Thank you for your input!

  Suzanne Nikolaisen

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-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI  fax: +33 4 92 38 78 22
Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Received on Thursday, 18 April 2002 18:33:32 UTC