Standards / W3C Guidelines

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was developed to devise a set of standards that web developers could work by to ensure that web designs would meet certain standards of accessibility, usability and performance that will allow users to access websites no matter what their platform or physical ability. Sites that hve been designed to theses specificatons can display the logos to the left to show that they have satisfied all requiremnts.

The WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) has been developed to move the web developer towards making sites accesible to users using assisitve technoogies. Laws have aso been introduced in the US so that any government / public servce site that is designed can be accessed fully by disabled users. There is currently no Irish law that specifically covers the accessibility of ICT-based products and services. There are Irish guidelines in place in relation to Accessibiltiy and these can be found on the Irish National Disability Authority IT Accessibility Guidelines