Jonathan Hassell Acting Chair, BSi IST/45 European Accessibility Summit, Frankfurt am Main 27 th March 2009 British Accessibility Standards - PAS-78 to BS8878

What are the British doing and why? why did we need a British Standard? because we have British law around accessibility and not just for public-sector websites, all sites… in 2005, research by the British Disability Rights Commission revealed sites weren’t doing well and no existing standards made it easy enough for site owners to know what to do so the DRC commissioned BSi to create PAS-78 to try and help

why did we need a British Standard?

because we have British law around accessibility

and not just for public-sector websites, all sites…

in 2005, research by the British Disability Rights Commission revealed sites weren’t doing well

and no existing standards made it easy enough for site owners to know what to do

so the DRC commissioned BSi to create PAS-78 to try and help

Aims of PAS-78 to give a guide to the whole process of commissioning, producing and maintaining a website from a site owner’s point of view to not replace other standards , but to provide a non-technical person’s guide to how those standards should be used to help ensure a development project results in an accessible product it focuses on, advising site owners on: a quick background in disabled people’s use of the web ; how to create an accessibility policy for the creation of their site what to look for if they are contracting the work out to a supplier how to choose technologies to uphold that policy (making much reference to WAI) how to test the resulting site against that policy – are best-efforts enough cf guidelines, or does it actually have to work with users?

to give a guide to the whole process of commissioning, producing and maintaining a website from a site owner’s point of view

to not replace other standards , but to provide a non-technical person’s guide to how those standards should be used to help ensure a development project results in an accessible product

it focuses on, advising site owners on:

a quick background in disabled people’s use of the web ;

how to create an accessibility policy for the creation of their site

what to look for if they are contracting the work out to a supplier

how to choose technologies to uphold that policy (making much reference to WAI)

how to test the resulting site against that policy – are best-efforts enough cf guidelines, or does it actually have to work with users?

Drivers to bring PAS-78 up to date… Web 2.0’s much wider purposes for websites, including: the move from informative web content to: web as tools ( “Software as a Service” ) web as rich/media-media entertainment (games, IPTV, eLearning etc.) the move from Provider-Produced content to User-Generated content (blogs, Facebook etc.) the increasing use of non-W3C technologies the use of “off the shelf” tools rather than bespoke development

Web 2.0’s much wider purposes for websites, including:

the move from informative web content to:

web as tools ( “Software as a Service” )

web as rich/media-media entertainment (games, IPTV, eLearning etc.)

the move from Provider-Produced content to User-Generated content (blogs, Facebook etc.)

the increasing use of non-W3C technologies

the use of “off the shelf” tools rather than bespoke development

BS8878 – progress and debate work began early 2008 a first draft was created by end Nov 2008 (before WCAG 2 was confirmed) NB. the final version is very likely to use WCAG 2 as the base of its technical guidelines there were some things which were maybe a bit premature in the first draft however, the comments on the draft have been very illuminating on its future direction many of the comments completely disagree with each other on many fundamental issues it’s already obvious that our standard, like many out there, cannot please everyone so we are discussing…

work began early 2008

a first draft was created by end Nov 2008 (before WCAG 2 was confirmed)

NB. the final version is very likely to use WCAG 2 as the base of its technical guidelines

there were some things which were maybe a bit premature in the first draft

however, the comments on the draft have been very illuminating on its future direction

many of the comments completely disagree with each other on many fundamental issues

it’s already obvious that our standard, like many out there, cannot please everyone

so we are discussing…

The big issues we’ve found (cf. today) whether accessibility is about disabled people or more than that are we talking about accessibility to users, devices or browsers? if users: whether we are aiming for “access for all”, access for targeted groups of disabled users, or should include the needs of elderly people whether the level of access to aim for should be accessibility, usability, or even user-experience whether the standard should dictate a level of conformance … or be a best practice guide stating a number of levels which could be aimed for and the implications of selecting each level what the best way of testing is: how well automated or manual checklist testing based on a standard (like WCAG 2), or task-based user testing with disabled people, can capture barriers for disabled people how to avoid being too constraining about technology use when we should encourage best practice in interfacing with assistive technologies and when to encourage sites to provide accessibility features or preferences themselves (personalisation) how much to include guidance on authoring tools (cf. ATAG)

whether accessibility is about disabled people or more than that

are we talking about accessibility to users, devices or browsers?

if users: whether we are aiming for “access for all”, access for targeted groups of disabled users, or should include the needs of elderly people

whether the level of access to aim for should be accessibility, usability, or even user-experience

whether the standard should dictate a level of conformance …

or be a best practice guide stating a number of levels which could be aimed for and the implications of selecting each level

what the best way of testing is: how well automated or manual checklist testing based on a standard (like WCAG 2), or task-based user testing with disabled people, can capture barriers for disabled people

how to avoid being too constraining about technology use

when we should encourage best practice in interfacing with assistive technologies and when to encourage sites to provide accessibility features or preferences themselves (personalisation)

how much to include guidance on authoring tools (cf. ATAG)

Thanks Happy to chat later… [email_address]