What happens when you fall at the first hurdle?
Accessibility audit for a sixth form college
I completed a website accessibility audit with a college recently. Like other colleges, they have a certain amount of disabled students attend each year. They needed an audit done because they had been required to by the UK Government’s Digital Service. However, given the fact that they have disabled students and will have in the future, it was also important for them to understand themselves what the accessibility issues might be.
The site had a Cookie Banner.
You have to have a Cookie Banner to comply with GDPR regulations, if you have any kind of analytics tracking code on your website.
However Cookie Banners are generally not accessible for disabled people.
They vary from being a nuisance to making the whole website inaccessible.
If it prevents a disabled person from accessing a website, it actually puts the website in breach of the Equality Act.
You could not close it off!
With this particular website, the Cookie Banner had a link to close it, which all Cookie Banners do. However, this one could not be closed by someone using a screen reader. Either on a computer or on a mobile.
This meant that every time you went to any page on the website, you had this message being read out. “Our website uses cookies. By continuing we assume your permission to deploy cookies, as detailed in our cookie policy”.
Not only that, if you attempted to navigate to different area of the page, this message would get read out, time and time again. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be to someone using a screen reader? How many other websites are like this?
This is why we do not allow Cookie Banners
I will never have Cookie Banners on my website or allow them on my client’s websites. To me, the Equality Act is far more important than GDPR.
Everyone has to make a choice.
Which is more important to you?
Would you like to find out more?
If you would like to find out more about website accessibility, please follow these links:
Find out more about website accessibility audits
Discuss having an accessibility audit of your website
Have a 1-hour consultation on any aspect of website accessibility
Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Accessible Websites, Beautifully Designed
Always Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
