BS 8878:2010

• 35.240.30 IT applications in information, documentation and publishing

This British Standard gives recommendations for building and maintaining web products that are accessible to, usable by and satisfying for disabled and older people.

It gives recommendations for:

• how organizations should ensure accessibility is considered in their web strategy by creating an organizational web accessibility policy (see 4.2 and 4.3). Organizations should also assign a role to be responsible for ensuring that all web products and services produced or procured are in accordance with this policy;

• how to embed the consideration of accessibility decisions through the entire process of producing web products, and document and justify these choices in the product’s accessibility policy (see 4.4 and 4.5);

• how to consider the impact of the purpose of the product, its target audience and their needs, the product’s choice of platform and technology, and whether to adopt an inclusive design approach or one which also includes an element of user-personalization;

• how to best use existing web accessibility guidelines (or accessible web production tools) in the process of producing accessible web products;

• how to ensure that web products being procured rather than created are selected or specified in such a way as to assure their accessibility; and

• how to assure web accessibility throughout a web product’s lifecycle, by considered use of various research and testing methodologies (including the involvement of disabled people) at key points in the production process; and

• how to communicate the web product’s accessibility decisions to its users at launch, through creating and publishing its accessibility statement (see 4.4 and 4.6).

BS 8878 is applicable to all types of organization. These include: public and private companies, non-profit organizations, government departments, local councils, public sector organizations and academic institutions.

The audience for this document includes:

• whoever is ultimately responsible for the policies covering web product creation within an organization and governance against those policies (e.g. Chief Executive Officers, Managing Directors, Headteachers, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) managers);

• people responsible for promoting and supporting equality and inclusion initiatives within an organization (e.g. Human Resource (HR) managers or those responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility);

• procurement managers (e.g. those responsible for procuring web products or the tools to create them such as content production systems or virtual learning environments);

• web production teams (e.g. product owners, project managers, technical architects and web developers, designers, usability and accessibility engineers, test engineers);

• people with responsibility for creating or shaping online content (e.g. website editors, marketing managers, web content authors);

• people who create web production, testing or validation tools; and

• people who write and deliver training courses in web production, design or coding.

Other audiences that might also be interested in this British Standard include:

• assistive technology creators, vendors and trainers who need insights into how their technologies impact on the production of accessible web products; and

• those disabled and older people whose web accessibility needs the Standard aims to support and present.