Clackmannanshire Council Website wins top Prize for Acessibility

Clackmannanshire Council’s website has won the Accessibility Award in the e-government UK Good Communication Awards 2005 (GCA). After a rigorous judging process, the award was presented by Trenton Moss of Webcredible to the Scottish Council.

Clackmannanshire Council’s award winning website was re-launched in March 2005. A panel of site users was established in August 2004 and throughout the site development their views were sought on a range of topics. The panel included one blind user and one partially sighted user.

Although web accessibility is about making a website accessible to all users, it’s particularly concerned with those with visual impairments or disabilities. Accessibility also involves making sure the website is suitable for people with hearing, motor, and cognitive impairments. It can even refer to people who are accessing the site from particular environments (e.g. a public library with a slow internet connection), or with particular technologies (e.g. a mobile device).

Many organisations’ reasons for making their website accessible are to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and to maximise their online audience. But it is also the case that accessible websites are easier and less time-consuming to manage, better suited to handheld devices and likely to place higher in the search engine rankings.

According to Webcredible’s Trenton Moss, Clackmannanshire Council’s site is an
'excellent example of best practice – images have descriptive alternative text, headings have been appropriately labelled and link text is informative'. The site even takes that next step towards what Moss calls 'true accessibility', by allowing easy tabbing through the website for motor impaired users and providing extra navigation for screen reader users.

He expressed the hope that others will follow Clackmannanshire Council’s good example – last year’s study of 1000 websites by the Disability Rights Commission found that 81% of websites failed to reach the minimum standard for accessibility, known as Level A. Moss pointed out: 'accessibility makes good business sense and it’s the law – so it’s an open and shut case – literally!'

The GCA Judging Panel consisted of experts in e-government, telecommunications, print and public relations, and featured representatives from The British Computer Society, The British Printing Industries Federation, The Public Relations Consultants Association, The Call Centre Management Association, and the Plain English Campaign. Patrick H Lauke, webmaster at Salford University, chaired a special web accessibility panel, which provided an independent view of web accessibility and site design.

Associated Link: Clackmannanshire Council website

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