Disability Rights Commission Lunches Web Accessibility Investigation

I thought folks might find this interesting. It's from yesterday's New
Media Daily (the original press release is at
http://www.drc.org.uk/newsroom/newsdetails.asp?id=393&section=1):

Disability Rights Commission to test 1,000 sites
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A thousand UK Web sites will be checked to assess levels of
accessibility to disabled people after the Disability Rights Commission
formally launched an investigation into the issue today.

The move represents the first serious attempt by a government body to
tackle the matter of Web accessibility head on, and follows several
years of campaigning from disability groups.

The DRC will begin testing Web sites across the private and public
sectors over the next few weeks as part of a six-month investigation.

Technical assessments of around 1,000 sites will be carried out with
this sample, then narrowed to between 50 and 100 for follow-up testing
by a group of 50 disabled people.

The DRC plans to publish its conclusions by the end of the year, which
will then feed into further policy development. Michael Burton, DRC
Commissioner, stressed that the investigation wasn't a
naming-and-shaming exercise, and that the organisation would be seeking
to work with site operators towards better standards of accessibility.

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