As Stuart mentioned previously, the UK has very well-defined accessibility legislations. This is what the UK government legislates for disabled people:
http://direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/
The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act 2005) can be found here:
http://opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050013_en_1
The DRC (Disability Rights Commission Act 1999) can be found here:
http://opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1999/ukpga_19990017_en_1
The DWP (Department for Work & Pensions) recommends the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative).
http://dwp.gov.uk/employer/disability-discrimination-act/what-can-i-do/
http://w3.org/WAI/
Perhaps more pertinent to you might be the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and their guidance:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/professionals/webaccessibility/usefullinks/Pages/useful_links.aspx
> I know that accessibility is not the center point of
> requirements, but it can be benefitial. The problem is that you need to
> justify it and it does require quite an effort for people are not familiar
> with the issue. I am not the fan of flaming them how bad they are and how
> they send all the people with some kind of special needs to the recycle bin.
> I wanted to hear some voices on how to get accessibility on board without
> making extreme effort.
I don't think you should have this problem, unless you are asking for a separate budget for developing accessibility solutions which you might be wanting to (sell and/or) implement independantly.
The implications are legal compliance and regulatory requirement across horizontals, which is not an option or a subject for debate. I don't think any of the directors would veto these.
As you can see, there is a lot of help, guidance and support for what you are looking for in the UK. This can carry the teeth you are looking for too. I'm afraid I can't comment on other countries, and there are others far more qualified in their own respective countries and domains.
Best regards,
Joseph
On Mar 11, 7:56 pm, "Pawel Urbanski"
> Hi Stuart
> Thanks for your reply. I know that accessibility is not the center point of
> requirements, but it can be benefitial. The problem is that you need to
> justify it and it does require quite an effort for people are not familiar
> with the issue. I am not the fan of flaming them how bad they are and how
> they send all the people with some kind of special needs to the recycle bin.
> I wanted to hear some voices on how to get accessibility on board without
> making extreme effort.
> I stated it from the regulatory/compliance point of view because it is easy
> to give Section 508 or W3C's WCAG recommendation as an example. The American
> government frequently puts Section 508 as a compliance requirement - at
> least it is how it looks like to my knowledge collected from some friends
> working in the software industry in the USA.
> I really enjoyed your comments - especially showing some different angle in
> the placement of accessibility as an UI issue or business issue.
> Thanks a lot,
> Pawel
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stuart Scott"
> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 2:43 PM
> Subject: Re: How would you justify accessibility as an EA/compliance
> requirement.
> >> Those of you who live and work in the United States or Canada may be more
> >> familiar with the terms than people from Asia or Europe.
> > Note that in the UK the whole issue is made simple due to disability
> > discrimination legislation that mandates reasonable efforts to provide
> > accessibility.
> > However, as suggested by other responders, this is merely a subset of
> > the larger suite of requirements around regulatory and compliance
> > needs, and the non-functional demands on any given system (which may
> > include non-IT components).
> > My approach as an EA is generally to treat non-functional requirements
> > such as accessibility, resilience and DR as givens - such requirements
> > don't act as differentiators on any guidance my team provides because
> > we wouldn't put forward an approach that doesn't meet the basic set of
> > requirements.
> > Recommending a single corporate web presence with CMS based microsites
> > on sub-domains incorporating the various transactional web services
> > provided to our customers is a clear and straightforward
> > recommendation with direct customer, marketing, business, cost and IT
> > implications; that it also has to support accessibility requirements
> > doesn't factor in the recommendation.
> > To me, compliance with regulatory needs is owned by the Compliance
> > team; information security by the Infosec team; infrastructure
> > non-functionals by IT. Where accessibility isn't a regulatory
> > requirement then it's a business requirement, and should be owned by
> > the marketing or customer service teams. At most organisations a
> > straightforward business case will be possible highlighting the cost
> > savings provided by direct customer self-service as opposed to hiring
> > additional contact centre staff.
> > For internal employee accessibility I think that's a legal requirement
> > in the US too? It's a more complicated discussion, but not one we need
> > to have in the UK (due to the regulatory requirements).
> > cheers,
> > ~Stuart
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