Thursday, July 24, 2003

UK airlines fail to make websites accessible

An interesting article in the UK’s Computer Weekly magazine about the failure of the top airlines to provide minimum accessibility standards on their websites.

According to computing and disability charity AbilityNet, which carried out the survey, not one of the nine airline websites they checked for accessibility satisfied the criteria required to give users access (i.e. those people with visual impairment, dyslexia or those unable to use a mouse). They named names - EasyJet, British Airways, Ryanair, Bmi, British European, Monarch, Virgin Atlantic and Mytravelite.

The charity believes they are preventing up to 15% of the population from enjoying the benefits of booking their flights online.

The issues of web site accessibility are obviously connected with designing web sites for the 50+ user. What is different is that their will soon be a law to ensure companies take the disability issue seriously, when extensions to the Disability Discrimination Act come into force in October 2004.

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