Accessibility

There are many legal issues currently raised by the growth in e-commerce and e-learning, but one of the least discussed is that of Web accessibility. As a result of the increased use of proprietary technologies and a failure to follow guidelines when designing Web sites a large percentage of the Internet remains inaccessible to many parts of the disabled community. As a result, the effect has been to exclude a significant section of the population from fully benefiting and participating in the increased use and reliance on e-commerce and e-learning.In October 2004 the deadline for full implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) comes in to force which carries with it the legal obligation to ensure that all areas of your company are accessible to all employees regardless of their ability - and this of course includes training.

At e-learning WMB we have taken a pragmatic and ergonomic approach to accessibility. The system has examined the needs of the end user whether the user has:

a) poor eye-sight (therefore needing screen readers)
b) poor motor control (restricted to using tab and enter for input)
c) bad connectivity (all images removed form e-learning screen)

Under any of these conditions e-Office Safety is fully accessible. To reach Priority AA standards of accessibility no compromises have had to be made due to the separation of non-accessible content (such as Flash objects) from the textual content. This has meant that the system does not rely on images and therefore sight to convey it's message.

If you wish to discuss this topic further please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Emil Reisser-Weston MSc MEng MErgS
Director
03 12 04