Retail websites lack accessibility

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UK retailers aren't meeting basic web accessibility criteria, according to online usability expert Nomensa.

A study of the top 30 British retailers discovered that not one of them is up to scratch when it comes to achieving the minimum legal requirement in this respect, Single-A compliance.

The research tested sites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0. It found that nearly all of the sites (29) had graphical text that would prove troublesome for people with vision problems, such as glasses wearers.

And 23 of the websites visited had search forms, navigational links or banners that did not work without Javascript.

Just two sites, Apple Computer and John Lewis, of the 30 tested, provided appropriate text descriptions for all images which is helpful for people who are blind or partially sighted in understanding the purpose of visual content.

Marks and Spencer and Tesco were also given notable mentions for their efforts to make their sites more accessibility. But there is still more work to be done.

To redress the balance, Nomensa is demanding that boardroom executives adopt online social responsibility (OSR) policies.

"Many of the corporations audited invest millions each year in their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes," added Norris.

"Today I am calling on the boardrooms of these retailers to really start to take their online responsibility just as seriously."

As well as excluding people with disabilities by not meeting these basic requirements, the organisations concerned could be losing out financially to the tune of £376 million this Christmas.

"There are over 10 million disabled people in the UK , and I believe that each one of those has a right to be able to buy a Christmas present online for a friend or loved one this year," said Simon Norris, managing director at Nomensa.

"These research findings show that anyone with serious physical impairments, the visually impaired or even just people wearing glasses to read would encounter difficulties and in many cases would give up trying."

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