PAS 78 and BS 8878

PAS 78 and BS 8878

July 12th, 2010 | Filed under Blog,Web Design

If you are a web designer or developer, you should be familiar with PAS 78 and the new British Standard BS 8878 that will replace it.

It is surprising how many web designers/developers are not familiar with them, and many have never heard of them.

PAS78

In brief, PAS 78 was published in 2006 as a guide to producing accessible websites that makes them usable for those with disabilities. It is a good practice guide, not a rule or regulation and was produced in collaboration with the Disability Rights Commission and many charities to ensure that web developers are creating sites that are accessible to all.

In order to gain basic compliance, a website must conform to W3C guidelines whether the site written in HTML, governed by a CSS, XML and a whole list of others.

So if you’re a web developer that’s never heard of PAS 78, the main points are:

  1. Upholding W3C standards in a web development
  2. Involving disabled people in the development and planning process
  3. Understand how disabled people use websites
  4. Get disabled people to test the website before it goes live

BS 8878

BS8878 has evolved from PAS 78 and is currently in draft. This is actually listed as a Code of Practice with the British Standards Institution (BSi) and will replace PAS 78 when it is published.

It extends from the information in PAS 78 and goes into more detail about commissioning websites that are accessible to all. It’s main (draft) points are:

  1. You must be able to show understanding of how disabled people access the web, and take those considerations into your web development draft
  2. Show an understanding of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
  3. Understand the tools available to you
  4. Understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  5. Use a CMS that is Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) compliant
  6. Involve disabled people in the planning, development and testing of a website

There is no timeline as to when this standard will be available and I suspect it will be a badge, rather like BS/ISO 9001, BS 8477 etc.

Getting to know them?

It is a good idea to familiarise oneself with these documents, rather than being able to directly quote from them for now.

Making a website completely accessible is a huge step forward and being able to badge a website with full BS 8878 and W3C conformance will be a fine feather in your cap and is likely to be implemented within awards criteria if you’re looking to win some!