"While the results so far were not as good as one would have expected, there is movement in the right direction," said Simon Norris, managing director of the British accessibility firm Nomensa, launching his company's "Global Audit of Web Accessibility" at the UN.
According to the report, 97 of the 100 Web sites examined failed to meet the minimum accessibility level for people who are blind, have low vision or cannot use a computer mouse. But the study, commissioned by the UN and conducted by Nomensa, found that a quarter of the Web sites investigated could be brought into line with the international standards quickly and for little expense.
An accessible Web site, according to Judy Brewer of the World Wide Web Consortium, relies on accessible browsers, accessible media players and other user-friendly features for hundreds of assistive technologies, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers. The ideal Web site should be "perceivable, navigable, operable and robust", she said, adding that industry-wide standards "will build a unified market for accessibility tools, helping to bring down costs".
The report examined the leading Web site in five key areas -- air travel, banking, retail shopping, media and government -- in 20 countries.
"The results are very similar across all countries, regardless of their socio-economic background, culture and level of technological development," said Leonie Watson, Nomensa's head of accessibility.
Under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium, which the survey used, Web sites must allow users to easily adjust text size, navigate through the site, differentiate between colors, allow keyboard shortcuts and offer an alternative to JavaScript, which is not used by some 10 percent of persons with disabilities.
Ninety-three percent of the sites examined did not provide adequate text descriptions for graphical content, she said, causing problems for visually impaired people, including herself. Some 73 percent relied on JavaScript for important functionality, making it impossible to navigate beyond the home page, and 98 percent did not follow industry Web standards for the programming code, "building a house on weak foundations."
Yet making Internet sites accessible to persons with disabilities is not just a moral issue but also a business opportunity to tap into a larger share of the market, according to business executives speaking yesterday at the UN.
Speaking at a panel marking the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Preety Kumar, President and CEO of Deque Systems, a company that helps make Web sites accessible, said, "When you're talking about one in five people being disabled, we got management's attention."
"If a Web site is designed properly, it can give you a lot of information," said Betsy Zaborowski of the U.S. National Federation of the Blind while demonstrating a screen reader on the site of her organization. "It is the first time in my life that I can access so much information at the click of a mouse," she said, while the automated voice of the device read out the content of the page.
Making Web sites accessible was justified as a business initiative, said Frances West, Director of IBM's World Wide Human Ability and Accessibility Centre. "You don't design accessible Web sites just for persons with disabilities, but for all of us."
Kumar added that Web accessibility would increasingly become an issue with the ageing of the world population. It was also a matter of corporate responsibility and there was a business rationale -- such as reducing Web maintenance costs, increasing market share and providing services an ageing population.
"The cost implications of adding accessibility to a Web site are like those of purchasing car insurance," she said. "Usually they amount to 5-10 percent of the total cost of Web site ownership."
