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 Web site Accessibility Audits

What's all this ACCESSIBILITY about?

Unfortunately, due to the majority of web sites being inaccessible the Internet is barred to the very people it should be most beneficial to.
For example, the Internet should allow a blind person to pay bills, shop for food or book a holiday without the assistance of a sighted guide.
The Internet should be the one place where people with disabilities do not feel excluded or disadvantaged.

To get a feel of how people with various visual impairments might experience the web, please visit our visual impairment simulation page.

Why bother, what's in it for me?

Catering for the needs of our disabled community is a largely untapped market. In the UK alone there are 8.6 million disabled people with a combined spending power of £50 billion annually (there are over 600 Million users worldwide - you do the maths!)
Even a tiny percentage of those users would pay for the small extra cost incurred in the development of this site if accessibility issues had been addressed at the outset.( Disability Rights Commission  ).

It is important to take into account that Accessibility is not just about making a web site accessible to people with various disabilities. It is also about making web sites accessible to the next-generation of Internet access devices, for example mobile phones and PDAs.

Do I HAVE to do this?

Under the UK Disability Discrimination Act ( DDA ) 1995 businesses have a legal obligation to ensure that their services are accessible to people with disabilities. So, in a word, YES! Most companies are unaware that this legislation applies to web sites, extranets and intranets. Similar laws exist in the E.U., Australia and the USA .

It would therefore seem to make sense to plan ahead rather than wait until you are given a deadline or face prosecution and possible fines. Another advantage of becoming accessible now is that your site would be amongst the top 20-25% of online businesses in respect of potential customers worldwide available to you.

OK, so what do I need to do?

An international set of guidelines has been developed under the Web site Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C ). The guidelines are called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 ( WCAG 1.0).

The WCAG 1.0 defines three levels of accessibility, namely A, AA and AAA. Each level builds on the others and allows for a wider range of audience to access web sites that conform to that particular standard. Current interpretation of the DDA indicates that a site must achieve a minimum level-A compliance although we would recommend you consider as a minimum level-AA compliance being the best balance of cost to accessibility/usability improvement.
i.e. If you are going to the cost of making your web site level-A accessible it is, on average, only an extra 10% of this cost to become level-AA but your site will be accessible to an extra 25% of disabled users.

The UK Government has defined their own internal standard for developing accessible web sites based on the WCAG 1.0 guidelines. The details can be found on the UK Government Web site Accessibility Guidelines  page.

Can you tell me more?

Please read our article, Is your Web site legal? for more information.

Exactly how can you help me?

The Accessible Site Accessibility Audit will help your company remain legal and will also enable you to access a poorly represented market of potential clients, both disabled and alternative technology users.

The Accessibility Audit

  • An initial consultation to determine the scope of the audit
  • An audit of the Web site against the WCAG 1.0 guidelines
  • A comprehensive report detailing areas of non-compliance
  • A full re-audit of the entire site once the recommendations have been implemented
  • Certification of the Web site and eligibility for the We Are Accessible Scheme

The audit can be performed at any one of the WCAG 1.0 levels, i.e. A, AA or AAA.

Semi-Automatic Process

To increase our efficiency and thus keep down prices, (very important we're sure you will agree!) we use a semi-automated tool to perform these audits. These tools scan the thousands of lines of code on your site and produce a report for us. The tools cannot fully interpret the content of a site automatically so they highlight areas that need to be checked manually to ensure that it is indeed compliant. For example, one of the requirements is that all images must have a unique ALT attribute. If a site had "image" as the ALT attribute for each and every image on the site the automated tools will report this separately to us and we will manually check each image. This process is applied to a number of other criteria. Automated tools are also used to check the validity of the HTML / XHTML and CSS coding.

When will I receive my report ?

Anywhere from 2 days up to 3 weeks following receipt of your payment. The exact time depends on the number of pages you want auditing, the level of compliance the site is being tested against, and our current workload. We will send you an approximate completion date once you order has been received and will notify you if this expected completion date changes.

The report will be published to a password protected page on our Web site. You will be sent login details by email when the report is available. The report will contain details of all errors found on your site with explanations and recommendations. Included with the report will be a quote for the required work should you wish us to undertake it on your behalf.

Special Offer:
If you commission us to undertake all of the work highlighted in your Accessibility Audit within 14 days of your audit report being published.
Then we will .....
  1. Deduct the cost of the Audit Report from the cost of the required work. (Minimum £116.33 Value)
  2. Enter your web site into the We Are Accessible searchable database Free for 12 Months (£35.00 value)
  3. Add the applicable W3C-WAI conformity logo and the We are Accessible Logo to each page of your web site Free of charge (£10 per page value)

 

Ok, I'm interested, what's next?

The cost of an Accessibility Audit depends on how many pages of your site you want to audit, which standard you wish to audit against and how the layout of the page is controlled.
You have 4 options:

Option 1
A Free Audit !!

Yes, if you send us your web site details we will perform an Accessibility Audit on your Home Page completely Free of Charge. The report you will receive is in exactly the same format as our full site audit.
Why are we offering a free audit?
Part of the philosophy behind The Accessible Site is aimed at educating and encouraging web site owners to become accessible whilst showing that it doesn't have to cost thousands of pounds.
By offering this FREE service to you we are able to showcase our talents, impress with our professionalism, prove the quality of our services and the value for money that we offer.
Whilst hoping that you will appreciate the standard of the Accessibility Audit that you receive, our aim is to show you that even though we charge significantly less than most of our competitors we offer a suite of services and products that are superior to most available on the web and offer excellent value for money. (i.e. We hope that by showing you what we can do you will come back and purchase some of our other value for money services !!)
Order Your FREE Single Page Audit Now


Option 2
Accessibility Audits for Smaller Sites

If you have a smaller web site with 10 pages or less then this is the audit for you. (If you just have a single page site why not take advantage of our FREE offer above?!) If you decide to go for this option, remember our special offer above and this Accessibility Audit could also be FREE for you!
The report you will receive is in exactly the same format as our full site audit.

The cost of a 2-5 page Accessibility Audit is
Level A - £99 + VAT
Level AA - £120 + VAT
Level AAA - £145 + VAT
Order your 2-5 Page Accessibility Audit Now

The cost of a 6-10 page Accessibility Audit is
Level A - £199 + VAT
Level AA - £220 + VAT
Level AAA - £245 + VAT
Order your 6-10 Page Accessibility Audit Now

Option 3
Web Accessibility Snapshot for Large Sites

If you have a large web site with hundreds of pages and just want to gauge the accessibility of your web site(s) without the cost of a full scale audit we can do a snapshot for you of up to 10 pages that you consider represent your web site as a whole.
A snapshot is a quick, easy and inexpensive way to check whether your website is accessible – and whether you are fulfilling the requirements of the law (Disability Discrimination Act 1995).
The report you will receive is in exactly the same format as our full site audit.
To order your Accessibility Snapshot Audit today simply click on one of the links below, complete the form and we will send your report by email within 15 working days – it couldn't be easier!
Remember our special offer above and this Accessibility Audit could also be FREE for you!

The cost of a 2-5 page snapshot is
Level A - £99 + VAT
Level AA - £120 + VAT
Level AAA - £145 + VAT
Order your 2-5 Page Snapshot Audit Now

The cost of a 6-10 page snapshot is
Level A - £199 + VAT
Level AA - £220 + VAT
Level AAA - £245 + VAT
Order your 6-10 Page Snapshot Audit Now

Option 4
Full Site Audit Report
Due to the many variables to take into account when preparing a quote for a full site we need you to fill out a pre-audit questionnaire.

All audits are scoped on an individual basis according to the size of your site, whether it contains micro sites or is part of a suite of sites.

The questionnaire helps us understand the size and complexity of your web site or suite of sites as well as accurately cost the audit. Once we have received it we will get back to you with a quote and confirm dates when the audit will can be carried out.

Online Pre-Audit Questionnaire