Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Access for all a long way off

    A A A          What can you see?

AN ACCESSIBILITY AGENCY that has been investigating how easy websites are to access by users with disabilities, has concluded that the majority of web designers are failing to produce sites in line with the minimum levels of accessibility for all. Commissioned by the United Nations as part of its International Day of Disabled Persons, Nomensa investigated many of the world’s leading sites, taking a sample from five different sectors in 20 countries. The sectors studied included: travel, retail, banking, government and media. In the UK, the brands under scrutiny were:
British Airways, Marks & Spencer’s, Lloyds TSB, the British PM’s site and The Guardian. The report states that across all 100 sites probed, only three (including Tony Blair’s) achieved the minimum standards, along with Blair’s Spanish and German counterparts.

Among the portfolio of statistics it was revealed that 93 per cent failed to provide adequate text descriptions for graphics, 78 per cent used colours with poor contrast causing issues for colour blind sufferers, 97 per cent denied the ability to resize pages and 89 per cent offered poor navigation. “It’s important for commercial, legal and moral reasons that websites put in place a strategy for accessibility,” urges Alex Metcalfe, Nomensa’s head of client services.

By webdesignermag.co.uk Issue 127

The Act in full - Disability Discrimination Act 1995

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Friday, February 2, 2007

New Legislation for Company Correspondence and Websites

January 17, 2007

On the 1st January 2007 legislation came into force which extends the duty of a company to make disclosures of its details in relation to its correspondence. The existing requirements relate to paper based communications and require the following information to be included:

  • the company’s name;
  • the company’s registered number;
  • the company’s place of registration (i.e. England and Wales or Scotland);
  • the situation of the company’s registered office.

The legislation now requires that this information also appears on the following:

  • all company order forms;
  • all company websites.

It is not necessary that the information appear on every page of a website. However, so the information is easily accessible, it is advisable that it appear on the front page or homepage of the website or under an “about us” or “legal” section of the website.

Additionally, where the information would be required on a hard copy document, it will now also be required where the document is in electronic format. Consequently, companies should now ensure that footers of emails contain the relevant information.

Failure to comply with the requirements may result in both the company and an officer of the company who issues a document being liable to a fine. You should note that if an officer of a company signs a cheque or other documents such as an order for money or goods in which the company’s name is not mentioned, in addition to a fine, he will be liable to the recipient of such documents for their value if it is not paid by the company.

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Brush up on branding

Sarah Bridge explains why giving your company or product the right image is of crucial importance 
  
Starting off with the right brand for your product or company can be crucial to a your business. “You should never underestimate how important it is to get it right at the very beginning,” says Olly Raeburn, managing partner of creative agency Liquid Communications.
“You are only new once, so you have got to think things through. What is at the core of the business and does your branding reflect that?”

Perry Haydn Taylor, founding partner of the brand experts Big Fish, agrees: “It is a priority to get branding right at the very beginning. If you have the best product in the world but you don’t have the best brand, then it is not helping your business. Branding is a way of getting people interested in to what you’re all about.”

The most important thing to spend on branding is time, he adds: “Entrepreneurs tend to rush in and make decisions quickly but prevention is definitely better than cure with branding. Get it right and it pays dividends — if not, it’s a lot of effort to change things halfway through.”

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By Sarah Bridge Feb 2007 (c) Sunday Times
www.business.timesonline.co.uk

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