So What Does It All Mean to You?

You may be wondering why I have included these rather detailed examples of legislations, standards and policies.

I wish to illustrate that, depending on where in the world you are, how tricky it can be to find clear-cut, unambiguous legislation that clearly states your responsibility under the law. As far as I am concerned, equal access to information and accessible technologies should be a right for everybody and, I really like the US model. However, as I hope that you can now see, in many parts of the world it just isn't so and it is often a struggle to make accessible services a reality in a legislative context.

Note

The US has a rights-based approach where if procurers don't comply, then they don't do business with the federal government, which is one big client to ignore. The EU have adopted a softer 'accessibility as a standard' approach, starting with EU wide procurers (which means public sector agencies) and then taken the view that this will have a trickle down effect for those in the private sector.

Which is the best? It's hard to say. As I mentioned, I like the rights-based approach as I think this got the attention of anyone who wanted to do business with the US government. The EU has taken a different approach.

The US model may engender a 'do the bare minimum' to check all the boxes and declare yourself compliant; this is not an ideal mindset. So only time will tell how effective the EU approach will be. There are many capable people involved in various EU projects who are flying the flag for accessibility and the adoption of best practices and standards.

There is certainly a shift around the world towards public sector and business having to build accessible websites and other ICT services as a matter of course. There have been some high profile court cases, which have brought these accessibility issues into the public consciousness and no doubt there will be more, but even this has not shocked or scared business into a great rush towards making their websites and applications accessible.