North website designers face a race against the clock to comply with new disability access legislation.

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Information for everybody.

That was the original vision for the internet - to make information, goods and services accessible to people all over the world in different countries, cultures and languages.

But there is one group of people who have not been able to access the net as easily as others - the disabled.

The British physicist credited with inventing the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee, once said: "The power of the internet is in its universality - access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." But despite these noble intentions, the majority of websites still remain inaccessible to disabled people.

This should have changed when the Disability Discrimination Act came into effect in 1999, stating that any service failing to meet the needs of disabled people could find its owners in court.

But according to a survey of more than 1,000 UK sites last April by the Disability Rights Commission, 81pc of sites still fail to meet a minimum standard of accessibility.

One of the reasons is the ambiguity surrounding the implementation of the Act because it does not specifically mention websites or services.

But in February 2002, a new draft of the code of practice for the Act was published which went some way to clarify the law as it applies to web-sites and on October 1 this will come into effect.

As the deadline approaches, companies are taking the law very seriously after the Royal National Institute for the Blind announced it was to take up legal cases against a number organisations over their sites.

A spokeswoman for the Disability Rights Commission said: "Eighty-one per cent is an alarmingly high figure and what is worse is that because of the way the legislation is framed it is the responsibility of an individual disabled person to bring court action against an organisation whose site is inaccessible.

"Obviously this can be very difficult for a person with a disability and it is not surprising that none of these cases have made it to court yet.

"I don't think the October 1 deadline will actually have much of an effect because the legislation has been in place since 1999 and as our survey showed, the majority of sites are still inaccessible and therefore breaking the law."

Website owners who are in doubt about how to make their sites accessible can refer to the web accessibility guidelines set out by W3C - the World Wide Web Consortium.

These include ensuring documents are clear, simple and easy to navigate, providing equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content and text equivalents for every non-text element as well as making sure text and graphics can be understood when viewed without colour and that new technology is compatible with older browsers.

Web owners also need to make sure their sites are compatible with the technology used by disabled people to access sites, such as text-to-speech software, screen readers, text-magnification packages and Braille keypads.

North-East web design company Mancala thinks the new law will have far-reaching implications for how sites are designed and how the internet is used. Managing director Deryck Harlick said: "My understanding of the legislation is that it is not there to persecute the hobby sites, it is there to make sure that websites that offer a service take reasonable steps to make it accessible to the disabled.

"Where this will have a significant effect is with organisations that rely solely on Flash-driven sites. Most software Flash sites are seen as one image, they cannot differentiate between pictures and words and so screen-reading software used by the blind and visually impaired cannot translate what is on screen.

"The act should see web designers moving away from wholly Flash-driven sites and only using Flash where it is needed. Where organisations have flash-only sites they should be looking to implement a text-only version as well. This new legislation will not only offer the UK's eight million disabled people the chance to browse online in a way that many take for granted, but it will also open up a new market to those organisations who take on board the legislative requirements."

Prof Mike Wilson, of the Web Accessibility Initiative, agreed it would benefit organisations to meet the new requirements and suggested they consult the web accessibility guidelines to bring their sites up to scratch.

He said: "Following a court case in Australia, W3C's web-accessibility guidelines for web owners and designers have been recognised as the international standard for web access to be judged. They clearly set out how website owners can make their sites accessible, so that no-one can claim ignorance when it comes to web accessibility.

Visit the Web Accessibility Initiative at www.w3.org/WAI/.

The Disability Rights Commission is at www.drc-bg.org/

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