WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: AA? standard

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Feb 3, 2009 7:30AM

I'm at home at the moment so I can't lay my hands on the reference, but my
recollection is that no accessibility standards or guidelines are mandated
by law. Government guidelines state that public sector websites must meet
WCAG AA but this is not a legal requirement and is certainly not enforced
effectively.

All UK websites including public sector ones are subject to the DDA, which
is a legal requirement but it is not a technical standard. Only a court can
rule on whether a website is compliant or not, but its ruling only applies
to that particular plaintiff and their particular circumstances, so a
website may be DDA compliant in respect of one person but not another.

With regard to the phrase "Click Here", it does not violate any WCAG
checkpoint or create an accessibility barrier for any user group that I am
aware of. It is redundant if appropriate link text is used and it adds a
tiny amount of noise for screen reader users.

We recently did some user testing with a person with moderate learning
disability. She often failed to notice links even though they had
appropriate link text, and felt that "Click here" would have drawn her
attention to them. I'm not sure that she has drawn the correct conclusion
because there are other factors such as the link position and styling, but
it is a reminder that theoretical 'best practices' are not always so in
practice. User testing is where we learn the real lessons, and sometimes
there is no 'right answer'.

Steve