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Because accessibility is becoming such an important issue, organisations and individuals will make their voices heard if a website is publishing information that is inaccessible. There have been numerous cases of lawsuits being filed against companies in the UK and US in the last two years.
As a public sector body, Public Health England is under particular scrutiny as we are bound to comply with the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which set out guidelines for pages and publications, including:
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What this means is that we must offer an accessible option when publishing content, or we are breaking the law and breaching guidelines. What used to be advisory, has now become compulsory. This is particularly the case for public sector bodies, so Public Health England is under scrutiny to ensure that we are compliant.
What was once advisory is increasingly becoming compulsory. This means that ways of designing and publishing documents that used to be acceptable, the old ways we used to design and publish documents now need to be changed. It takes time and effort to produce effective alternatives, but this is important if that we are to do this work to ensure that we stay within the law and uphold the reputation of PHE.
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