Atlanta (May 24, 2005) – eMag Solutions, a leading electronic discovery company, today re-launched its Web site after a re-engineering for accessibility. The company now claims to comply with the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
In 1995, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) required European-based organizations to take “reasonable steps” toward ensuring that individuals with disabilities could access their Web sites. The legal requirement to provide access first became effective in 1996 and was extended in 1999 and again in October 2004. In the United States, the 1998 amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that all federal agencies must ensure that their electronic and information technology is accessible to disabled people whenever those agencies develop, procure, maintain or use Web technology.
In 1997, the W3C launched the Web Accessibility Initiative, which pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development. The first set of complete guidelines, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, are comprised of a set of “checkpoints” or design practices.
“Our business is built on accessibility so it was important for us to make our Web site accessible to all the different users who may wish to use it, regardless of disabilities or the differences between various Internet browsers,” said Trey Wilkins, director of marketing for eMag Solutions. “Web site accessibility is now clearly established as a long-term issue, and we are excited about being at the forefront of this important trend.”
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC), an organization formed to promote the advancement of disability rights, recently conducted a formal investigation – “The Web Access and Inclusion for Disabled People” – into the issues that disabled people in Europe face when using publicly-accessible Web sites. This investigation found that 81 percent of Web sites fail to meet the most basic criteria for conformance to Web accessibility guidelines like those instituted by W3C. For example, more often than not, blind Web users face incompatibility between their screen reading software and Web pages, thus making it impossible to highlight text using text-to-speech software. Similar findings have been made in the United States.
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