Legislation Ensuring Accessibility - Content Flashcards
What are the main legislations that ensure accessibility?
Disability Discrimination Act (1995 - 2005) [was replaced by the Equality Act (2010)]
What was the role of the Disability Discrimination Act?
Until 2010 the Disability and Discrimination Act was the main legislation banning discrimination on the basis of disability.
What is the role of the 2010 Equality Act?
It was passed in 2010
brought together and replaced a number of laws, including the Disability Discrimination Act, creating a single legal framework to ensure equality for all.
applies to both personal life and the workplace
Why is the Equality Act relevant to IT systems?
website owners and hosts have obligations to make their sites accessible to all.
Service providers must provide special computer software or additional staff support to make their systems accessible
What are some of the guidelines/ codes of practice that are used to ensure accessibility?
British Standards Institute (BSI) codes of practice
Open Accessibility Framework (OAF)
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
What is the role of the British Standards Institute codes of practice?
The BSI codes of practice cover a wide range of subjects, including accessibility. They are in place to ensure compliance with legislation.
Why is the British Standard Institute codes of practice relevant to IT systems?
It aims to ensure that web products are accessible to users with a physical impairment or learning difficulty.
What is the role of Open Accessibility Framework?
It is a European research project
It sets out a process for ensuring that IT systems are accessible.
The framework is broken into steps in two categories: creation of systems, and use of systems.
Why is the Open Accessibility Framework relevant to IT systems?
‘Create’ steps:
I Define what ‘accessible’ means for the particular platform.
2 Provide user interface elements
3 Provide authoring tools.
‘Use’ steps:
I Provide platform supports.
2 Provide accessible software
3 Provide assistive technologies
What is the role of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines?
These guidelines are defined by the World Wide Web Consortium to ensure web content is accessible to all regardless of disability.
Why are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines relevant to IT systems?
The guidelines define three different priority levels for accessibility.
Level one is considered the minimum to allow users with a disability to access a website.
