IM2044 – Week 11Dr. Andres Baravalle

Lecture content

• DDA and Equality Act• What is a disability?• Reasonable adjustments• Different standards• Different terms of service

Learning outcomes

• This week we will be working on:– LO2: Apply appropriate design and

specification standards– LO4: Effectively evaluate various systems and

make appropriate design decisions

Social and ethical issues

• The web and new technologies in general are used more and more to provide services and goods

• The web, as it has the potential to reaches users directly at home, can diminish both the isolation and interaction problems of disable citizens

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Social and ethical issues (2)

• The right of users, regardless of their disabilities, to use the web is widely acknowledged

Social and ethical issues: some examples• A un-accessible shopping web site would

exclude the type of users that are more likely to want to use it

• A un-accessible government web site would exclude the type of users that might have problems to reach the government (local or national) in other ways

• A un-accessible web site on health might be excluding exactly the users that would want to use it

Legal requirements

• Usability is not a legal requirement “per se” in the UK– Remember that usability is about achieving

goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction

• The discourse for accessibility is more complex and will be covered during the rest of the lecture

DDA

• The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (1995 – with modifications in the following years) is the first piece of legislation which made it unlawful to discriminate against people in respect of their disabilities in relation to:– Employment– Provision of goods and services– Education – Transport

EA 2010

• The Equality Act (EA) (2010) protects people from discrimination and harassment based on ‘protected characteristics’: disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation– We will discuss disability only

DDA vs EA (selected)• The EA introduced improved protection from discrimination that

occurs because of something connected with a person’s disability– This form of discrimination can be justified if it can be shown to be a

proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

• The EA introduced the principle of indirect discrimination for disability.

– Indirect discrimination occurs when something applies in the same way to everybody but has an effect which particularly disadvantages disabled people.

– Indirect discrimination may be justified if it can be shown to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

• The EA extends protection:– To harassment that is related to disability– To direct disability discrimination and harassment where this is based on a

person’s association with a disabled person, or on a perception that the person is disabled

EA: disability definition

• A person has a disability if:– The person has a physical or mental

impairment, and– The impairment has a substantial and long-

term adverse effect (> 12 months) on the person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities

EA: protections

• The Equality Act protects:– People who currently have a disability against

harassment and discrimination– People who have had a disability in the past

against harassment – Non-disabled people only where they are

perceived to have a disability or are associated with a disabled person

Discrimination

• In the context of the DDA and EA, discrimination means treating a person less favourably

• There is no discrimination when the practice under question is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”

• Direct discrimination is not unlawful in relation to the protected characteristic of disability, where a disabled person is treated more favourably than a non-disabled person

The role of the DDA/EA

• To provide guidance for both service providers and people with protected characteristics– As you have seen in the previous slides, the scope of

the DDA/EA is quite wide

• We are going to focus only on a subset of issues (which are the most relevant for the aims of this module):– Direct or indirect discrimination based on disability in

the provision of goods and services

Provision of goods and services

• It is unlawful to discriminate against a disabled person:– By refusing to provide a service to a disabled

person– By failing to make reasonable adjustments to

allow a disabled person to use a service– By providing services with different standards– In the terms on which the service is provided

Provision of goods and services (2)• It is irrelevant whether a service is

provided on payment or without payment

Reasonable adjustments: practice, policy or procedure• “Where a provider of services has a

practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled persons to make use of a service” it is the duty of the provider to take reasonable steps to change it

Reasonable adjustments: physical features• Where a physical feature makes it impossible or

unreasonably difficult for disabled persons to make use of a service, it is the duty of the provider to take reasonable steps to:– Remove the feature– Alter it so that it no longer has that effect – Provide a reasonable means of avoiding the feature– Provide a reasonable alternative method of making

the service available

Reasonable adjustments: nature of the service• Service providers do not have to take any

steps which would fundamentally alter the nature of the service (or make it economically unviable)

Reasonable adjustments: examples• Some examples for web sites:

– Include alternative descriptions for images, audio and video

– Provide fallback options for AJAX interfaces

• Some generic examples:– Avoid inadequate color combinations– Allow different ways of interaction (e.g. mouse

and keyboard, or text and graphics)

Providing services with different standards• Some discrimination examples for web sites:

– Adobe Flash based site with only a few pages available in HTML format

– Improper description of media files (“longdesc” attribute should be used whenever possible)

• Some generic discrimination examples:– Different performance of the accessible version– Outdated accessible version

Terms of use

• Some generic discrimination examples:– Forcing users to use specific software– Forcing users to use specific data standards

Exceptions• Health and safety• Incapacity to contract • When the provider “would otherwise be unable to

provide the service to members of the public”• When the different terms of use reflect the increased

costs

Examples of exceptions• Avatar building web site (faceyourmanga.com): would be

hardly possible without using Flash or Ajax• Google Maps: can be used with the keyboard and with

the mouse, but street names or any map labels can’t be read by text recognition software (hard to think how to do it otherwise)

• Aviary.com audio editor (hard to think how to do it otherwise)

• A number of Eclipse-based editors: they are complex and typically unusable for non-disable users

Test question!

• Service providers are required to always redevelop websites or Web applications which are not accessible

• True or False?

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Test question! (2)

• Service providers are required to always redevelop Web applications which are not accessible

• True or False?

Test question! (3)

• Websites cannot provide a lower standard of service to disabled users

• True or False?

Test question! (4)

• Lack of text description for videos in a web site can be considered as discrimination against disabled users

• True or False?

Test question! (5)

• A website which is designed very poorly and is unusable infringes the Disability Discrimination Act

• True or False?

Test question! (6)

• Developers of a UK website must correct accessibility problems when the adjustments required are reasonable

• True or False?

Test question (7)

• Ebook repositories as O’Reilly Safari must provide ebooks in formats as PDF to ensure that disabled users can use screen reading software as JAWS effectivelly

Bad treatment vs. less favourable treatment• If a website is not usable and generally

inadequate for use by abled users, it is obvious that it’s not accessible

• An accessible version is, in such cases, not a legal requirement– The web developer might not be able at all to

do anything better than what s/he has done!

It is not a “definite legal requirement”• “it still cannot be said that there is a

definite legal requirement under the UK's Disablity Discrimination Act for Web sites to be provided in an accessible form” (Sloan, 2002)

References

• Sloan, M. (2002). The Updated Code of Practice for Part iii of the Disability Discrimination Act. Available from http://www.dmag.org.uk/resources/legal/ddacode.asp

Readings for this week

• The Disability Discrimination Act: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/ukpga_19950050_en_1

• ISO 9241-171:2008: https://bsol.bsigroup.com/en/BsolHomePage/ (you must be using a UEL computer to download it)

• The Sloan article