CMS and Disability Act

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Alex King
Group Marketing Manager at ALB Accountancy Ltd

05 March 2005 17:28pm

Thank you for everyones input, we have decided to work with Plone... looks very interesting.
Deri Jones
CEO at SciVisum.co.uk

11 March 2005 17:35pm

On 14:01:34 1 March 2005 Ashley wrote:
...snipped...
>As an example of how NOT to do it, take a look at
>Manchester United's entry page ((http://www.manutd.com)
>http://www.manutd.com). I'd be very surprised indeed if
>they're not using a CMS but that page is still quite
>outstandingly in-accessible, particuarly given their user
>base. All it consists of is 4 images with no text, no
>alt text, no long descriptions, no nothing. I'd be very
>unimpressed indeed as a Man United fan trying to browse
>that site with a screen reader. (they do provide an
>accessible version at (http://www.manutd.com/access)
>http://www.manutd.com/access but you'd have to get
>through the splash page first)

Weirdly, their accessible site is award-winning:
Visionary Design Award 2003
www.twii.net/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=50128&itype=1961&iCategoryID=0
and took great effort ("undertook months of extensive research") - so why do they hide it?

Deri Jones
www.scivisum.co.uk
Andy Cobb
Business Development Director at Framfab

11 March 2005 18:01pm

On a slight tangent, there are one or two software solutions that can help here. You will know Bobby - well the company that now owns this software have a range of very much more sophisticated products. They are called Watchfire. You can run a report using this software to check a site for WCAG1 compliance (or levels 2 or 3 if you like). You can also run a report on a number of other quality metrics. However where the product is particularly clever is that you can place it into the workflow of your CMS so that you get a report prior to publishing which tells you whether what you intend to publish makes the site non-compliant.

My company (Framfab) are a partner of Watchfire but we have no vested interest - I know of other products. I would be happy to provide further information offline if required (without obligation of course).

On 19:42:38 4 March 2005 Dan Zambonini wrote:

Remember that code alone does not make you ’DDA Compliant’ (not that there is such a thing, yet).

As Ashley pointed out, the vast majority of CMS systems will allow you to produce accessible code, depending on how you implement templates, etc. - as most CMS systems are XML based, XHTML (and semantic markup) are pretty common.

Apart from producing accessible/semantic code, you of course also have to worry about accessible content (not many CMS systems can help you with this - (small plug - ours produces readability analysis!)), and offer functionality that allows accessible browsing.

For example, the WAI WCAG 1 guidelines (which most people agree the DDA will use as their base level of compliance) argue that you should ’provide content in the way in which the user needs it’ (or words to that effect) - so you could argue that a system that supports multiple lanaguages and output channels increases accessibility. The WCAG also hints at other pieces of required functionality, such as different levels of searching (to suit different needs of users), so a CMS that supports simple keyword to advanced/wizard searches is also a consideration...

It all depends on how you interpret the WCAG (as the DDA doesn’t really make that many specific requirements)...
Matthew Evans
Director at Solid State Group

18 March 2005 17:15pm

Steve,

I manage a website that we built using OpenCMS. I would say it has it's uses, but is not all that flexible. I've pushed it to the max building this site:
http://www.rgl.com
Sometimes I wish I had used something else. It's great for static pages of content, but for re-using content across multiple pages, forget it.
Also the development environment is terrible, you have to develop jsp templates in a web form !!! No debugging available. Very poor.

I'm using v5 but I dont think v6 is so much different.

Mail me if you want more details.

Cheers,

M@.

On 20:17:32 1 March 2005 MrAlexKing wrote:
>Steve,
>
>Thanks for the hints, due to the excellent article on
>E-consultancy about CMS, I have been looking at OpenCMS
>looks very feature rich and also extremely powerful.
>
>We will review the options out there but I wanted to see
>if anyone had any experince with any "spot on"
>CMS systems with ref to the disability act.
>
>Thanks
>
>Alex
>
>On 17:33:45 1 March 2005 Smorgan wrote:
>>How much the implementation costs depends on your
>>requirements, how closely the CMS matches them and
>what
>>skills you have in-house - not on whether or not it's
>open
>>source.
>>
>>I'm sure compliance with the disability act is one of
>>several important requirements that need to be
>understood
>>before a particular product can be recommended.
>However,
>>in the open source space have a look at:
>>
>>Zope www.zope.org (python)
>>Redhat CMS http://ccm.redhat.com/ (J2EE)
>>Matrix http://matrix.squiz.net (PHP)
>>Magnolia http://www.magnolia.info/en/community.html
>(J2EE)
>>
>>If you give me some more information about preferred
>>technology platform, other requirements, etc I can
>narrow
>>this down for you.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Steve
>>
>>
>>MrAlexKing
>>
>>On 13:52:52 1 March 2005 Lunchtime wrote:
>>>I don't want to dishearten you alex; in an ideal
>world
>>>open source can be a designers paradise but can
>break
>>the
>>>bank in implimentation. I keep raving about
>>>contensis because the implimentation time is
>minimal,
>>and
>>>they provide full technical support at every
>stage.
>>the
>>>cost to service ratio has benefited our business,
>>>intergrating old text and systems, from the off
>set.
>>>
>>>On 13:38:30 1 March 2005 MrAlexKing wrote:
>>>
>>>Thanks for for the reply but I was thinking along
>the
>>>lines of open source. Any ideas?
>>>
>>>On 13:27:35 1 March 2005 Lunchtime wrote:
>>>
>>>hey alex I have heard of Contensis.co.uk apprently
>>they
>>>comply with the CMS Disability act. and have one
>of
>>the
>>>best CMS solutions out there, second hand from my
>>boss,
>>>hope this helps