You are in the
company of
Roger Warren Evans
Roger Warren Evans
|
|
You are in the
company of
Roger Warren Evans |
|
| Part of www.LivePolitics.net < Back to Home Page |
NewLiving Diary Index
|
item0077A 1070, 1071 1070 2 March 2005 Dad 
You have asked for suggestions about compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act, for an ordinary website. It's not just a question of large print (which can in any event ordinarily be manipulated by the reader's own browser). There are other factors to take into consideration - such as having audio versions of key text available, or considering colour relationships (e.g. use of spectral opposites) for text and background, clarity and simplicity of font. These can make a real difference - not only for the visually impaired, but also for people with learning disabilities like dyslexia.
This is not to say that you are under a duty to ensure all of these things. The first, and very important, step in compliance is to have formally taken "ownership" of the issue, and acknowledged the possibility that disabled users of your site may have different needs. It is important to have made an open commitment to removing barriers to their access wherever possible. This will encourage others to take similar steps. Given the informal nature of your site, I would suggest that if you were to say on it that anyone who finds it difficult to read or otherwise access your site is invited to contact you, so that you can learn about the ways in which site users might be enabled to use it, that would be a really positive way of showing your commitment to widespread access. You might also want to say that anyone wanting any text from the site in even larger print, you would be happy to send it to them by e-mail on request (only if you would be, of course!). Love, Katharine
1071 28 February 2005
I refuse to
I cannot forget Iraq. Faced with Bush on his European grand tour, I cannot just put Iraq behind me, and "move on". Not because of the horrors of the invasion itself, or Falluja, or the tragic continuing loss of life - for I recognise that they are to be set against other horrors, including the atrocities of Saddam Hussein. I cannot forget Iraq because it marks the destruction, by George Bush, of all our hopes for a rational and humane world order. It was a political crime beyond forgiveness. His rubbishing of the United Nations was and is a political misjudgment of the highest order. The invasion of Iraq represented the triumph of sheer thuggish brute force over persuasion and diplomacy.
His is a violent Government with a short fuse. The reservoirs of goodwill, within the international community, have been polluted by the aggressive invasion of Iraq. And the British are tainted, along with their flawed leader. It will be a long time, after Bush and Blair are both gone, before we see restored any real international consensus for peace and the peaceful resolution of global conflict.
Do
not
Brian Brivati, Professor of Contemporary History at Kingston Universityi, writing in The Guardian, put me on the spot, over Iraq. He challenged those of us who are alienated by US dominance of Iraq, to make our own contribution to the development of a mature democracy in that country. He argues that Iraq would be ruined by the imposition of a US-style, welfare-meagre free-market American form of democracy. Iraq needs a "European" welfare state, suitably adapted to its particular requirements. Yet it will not get that unless we bring European influence to bear, in moulding the new Iraqi order.
|
|
|
| Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT
NOTICE
|
The RNIB do a fantastic pack, entitled '
