According to the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) there are around 10 million people with some sort of disability in the UK. This equates to about 1 in 7 people in the UK alone. These people make up a relatively untapped market, with a combined annual disposable income of £50 billion.

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)

Accompanying the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 (DDA), codes of practice were drawn up which recommend that necessary changes be made to ensure that companies websites remain accessible to people with disabilities.

It has been estimated that about 80% of websites in UK fall short of the basic minimum recommended accessibility guidelines. If your website does not comply with these guidelines you are potentially excluding 10 million people from your customer base.

Also, groups such as the DRC and Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) are calling for individuals to take legal action against businesses that fail to support disabled visitors on their website. There have already been a number of cases of this nature in the US and Australia in the last few years. Perhaps the most publicised of these was the case brought against the Sydney Olympics (2000) and the case against US retail giant 'Target' (2006).

How We Can Help

At User Fusion, we can help assess your website's current level of accessibility. We then work with you to develop a plan of action and a roadmap to achieving the highest level of accessibility for your website.

Whilst this may seem like a daunting and expensive prospect there's no need to worry. We rarely recommend a complete site overhaul unless your company is ready for one. For most websites a basic level of accessibility can be implemented rapidly and at little expense. This keeps you within the parameters of the law until your budget allows for further improvements to your website to be made.

Here at User Fusion we will run numerous tests on your site including:

• Measuring page download times
• Bandwidth usage
• Support for non-standard browsers (mobile phones, screen readers etc.)
• We will test your site for compliance with the WAI Guidelines for accessibility.

Our Accessibility Service

The cost of each Accessibility review depends on the number of pages to be tested, the level of accessibility you wish to check for, and the thoroughness of testing desired.

Once testing has been completed you will receive a report that outlines the current state of your websites accessibility. We will make a number of recommendations to improve accessibility, these will be split between short-term 'quick fixes' and long term goals. It is then up to you to act on the information provided either by contacting your own web development team or if you prefer letting us handle the updates and improvements.

For more information or to discuss your exact requirements please contact us.