UK accessibility investigation

Thanks to William Hudson (Syntagm) for the following:

The Disability Rights Commission has announced that it will begin testing Web sites across the private and public sectors over the next few weeks as part of a six-month investigation.

One thousand websites will be investigated for their ability to be accessed by Britain’s 8.5 million disabled people in the Disability Rights Commission’s (DRC) first Formal Investigation, it was announced today.

Technical assessments of around 1,000 sites will be carried out with this sample, then narrowed to between 50 and 100 for follow-up testing by a group of 50 disabled people.

The move represents the first serious attempt by a government body to tackle the matter of Web accessibility head on, and follows several years of campaigning from disability groups.

The DRC plans to publish its conclusions by the end of the year, which will then feed into further policy development. Michael Burton, DRC Commissioner, stressed that the investigation wasn't a naming-and-shaming exercise, and that the organisation would be seeking to work with site operators towards better standards of accessibility.

DRC press release: http://www.drc.org.uk/newsroom/newsdetails.asp?id=393§ion=1