Open Letter to Richard Benyon MP
Dear Mr Benyon,
As an independent web designer with a special interest in Accessibility, I naturally take note of what is going on in the world of web design and development. I was interested to read an article in The Register with reference to MPs awarding themselves £10,000 for their own site.
Today I had occasion to visit your site. I was intending to ask what was being done about the enormous waste of money on the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) web site. Having spent £200,000 on the original which doesn’t meet any of the basic requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), they are now paying further vast sums of money to the same development company to fix it.
Ref: DTI Internal Review
Ref: Bruce Lawson
Ref: DTI Update
As you can see from the DTI comments, they apparently specified the requirements for the site at the outset and these were ignored by the very developer who is now re-employed to fix it. If the DTI comments are true then I would question further expenditure of this magnitude and expect that the company concerned would fulfill their contractual obligations at no further cost. £60,000 for new templates for example is extortionate.
Back to the point of this communication. Having arrived at your site to send this message I was thoroughly disappointed to find it is no better than that of the DTI. Is this what the £10,000 was used for?
The laws of the land seem to be ignored by the very people who set them up. Government sites are supposed to be leading the way in this issue. Those of us who spend a lot of time and effort making our sites comply also spend time dealing with those who refuse to make any concessions in their development, citing the fact that if Government sites fail all the checks then why should they bother.
I have no figures available for expenditure on setting up the DDA and PAS 78 but that exercise would appear to be another vast waste of tax payers money.
The home page of your site alone:
Fails - Markup Validation “Sorry! This document can not be checked.”
Fails - to reach even the absolute minimum Web Accessibility Initiative levels
Fails - to provide adequate keyboard navigation for those who cannot use a mouse or trackball.
Fails - to provide alternatives for those without javascript enabled
Fails - to operate correctly in browsers other than Internet Explorer.
For example the text resize facility fails to operate in any browser other than Internet Explorer and does not work in that if javascript is not available. It also doesn’t resize the text anywhere near enough for those with poor eyesight. There are a number of other issues with the site including a lack of an accessibility statement to inform visitors what they can and cannot do.
It is interesting to note however that the developers of the site have made sure their site complies with the basics although they seem to have ignored keyboard users and text size issues which would indicate a lack of awareness.
Tuesday 1st May is Blogging against Disablism day and I had been wondering what to write about so I suppose I should finish by thanking you for giving me a subject.
regards
Gillian Lucraft
Copy emailed to Richard Benyon MP 28th April 2007 16:00
The site in question can be found at http://www.richardbenyon.com/home/
So how do the rest fare?
Out of interest, I also checked the sites of a few other local MPs. The results were depressingly similar.
Martin Salter - Reading West - inaccessible
Robert Wilson - Reading East - inaccessible
Theresa May - Maidenhead - Shadow Secretary House of Commons - inaccessible
Andrew MacKay - Bracknell - frames soup, doesn’t even attempt to meet the guidelines.
Congratulations but no bouquet goes to:
John Redwood - Wokingham - this site has an “accessible version” which fails level 2
Ed Vaizey - Wantage whose site isn’t perfect but has at least shown awareness of the issue by providing a text only version.
Round of completely and utterly stunned applause goes to:
Phyllis Starkey - Milton Keynes South West. Her site has a link to the following information:
Disability access
The Labour Party is an inclusive member-based organisation that prides itself on being accessible to all who share its values.
We believe that it is important to make our website accessible to all potential users. With this in mind we have worked hard to improve the website for people with all disabilities and impairments.
and then serves up the site in frames making it totally and utterly inaccessible! And what’s this about accessible to all who share the Labour Party values? So if you vote Conservative or Liberal it’s every man for himself?
Atrociously bad show all round. Sadly, I didn’t expect any different but if any of these sites cost £10,000 then either I’m severely undercharging my clients or somebody is “avin’ a laugh” - innit.
Helena Boylen responds:
Posted: April 29th, 2007 at 1:34 pm →
The reason is that since it’s not their money - it’s the taxpayers money, they don’t care if it costs £50 or £500,000.
They don’t particularly care about the accessibility of the site either as they know they can throw another £xxx,xxx of taxpayers’ money at it if anyone notices!
Obviously it’s a case of “Do what I say!” not “Do what I do!”
Helena Boylen responds:
Posted: April 29th, 2007 at 1:36 pm →
Actually there is an MP around the place somewhere (he was Labour so I instantly forgot about him!) who has a WordPress blog.
WordPress is FREE. WordPress is generally accessible out of the box and is endlessly flexible.
But that’d be waaay to sensible wouldn’t it?
Jaybee responds:
Posted: April 29th, 2007 at 4:44 pm →
Well I didn’t think things could get much worse but having sent the email to Mr Benyon at the address listed on his site, I received the following reply:
So now what? Please send mail to……… Who? Do I send it again? Maybe I could go hang around outside his weekly surgery or maybe knock on his front door. Good job I’m not “disabled” isn’t it.
Hmmmmm methinks I might drop a line to our local Radio Station, after all, there are elections round here next week.
Sally responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2007 at 11:41 am →
Thank you for this post, which is hugely helpful as a reference point. Yes, please publicise it locally in time for the elections. I struggle with making my blog in a nondisablist way and rely on others templates, which I do not have the ability to change. If it wasn’t afraid it would be too much work for everyone I would suggest we all email our own MP and refer them to your BADD blog.
Sean McManus responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2007 at 8:18 pm →
There are UK government accessibility guidelines, which I believe are here:
http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/resources/handbook/html/2-4.asp#2.4.1
It’s worth noting that the guidelines set a minimum target of WAI-A, so it seems a bit harsh to criticise John Redwood’s site for failing priority 2, given that this site might well satisfy the government’s own guidelines. That said, having visited it, I find that Redwood’s accessible version is missing alt tags (priority 1 checkpoint), probably because the CMS doesn’t support them since these are in ‘uploaded images’ according to the file path. So it doesn’t satisfy the government guidelines either. I haven’t had time to check whether this is an isolated problem or whether there are other accessibility problems.
We might have more luck getting MPs to commit to the standard that the government has already mandated, than we would in getting them to adopt the whole of the WAI guidelines for now. We can work on improving the government’s accessibility targets once we’ve got a commitment to a basic level of accessibility.
Since the £10k was only voted in a few weeks ago, I would be extremely surprised if any MPs have launched websites using it yet. Indeed, the sites you link to appear mostly to be party political, which is against the rules for the publicly funded sites. That makes this the ideal time to contact MPs to tell them about accessibility. They’re about to spend £10k of public money on webdesign each. Let’s make it effective.
Jaybee responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2007 at 8:56 pm →
Fully agree with you and no, I didn’t have time to assess all the sites properly either.
I put John Redwood’s site in the congrats but no bouquet as it does at least make a nod toward accessibility whereas the others, bar one, don’t. I worded it badly. Blame it on “rant” mode, apologies Mr Redwood. Alt text in this case probably should be missing. The images bring nothing of any value to the information that I could see but I haven’t checked everything. The news item “John Redwood Responds to Jack Straw’s Speech on “Britishness”" is accompanied by a picture of the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
But lets face it, none of the sites are good and there is no excuse. Section 3 of the DDA came into force in 1999 and the code of practice for it on 27th May 2002. It’s not as if the regs have only recently been brought in, they’ve had 5 years to sort it out but it’s clear that few of them seem to have the first clue. The thought of them spending a further £10k each, a total of what, over 6.5 million pounds on second sites of the same quality has me spitting blood.
I was rather hoping that emailing this to Richard Benyon might make him sit up and take notice but having failed to get it to deliver I’ve sent the link the BBC Radio Berkshire to see if they can get anywhere. I know they have a slot with both Richard Benyon and Martin Salter on every couple of weeks.
paul crichton responds:
Posted: May 2nd, 2007 at 12:57 pm →
You could try this website to get a working email address for Richard Benyon;
http://www.writetothem.com/
For what it is worth, I did a small survey of MP websites a couple of years ago to support an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons regarding website accessibility. it is quite old, but you may find it interesting to read the press release.
http://www.net-progress.co.uk/press/press_release_140305.htm
I didn’t follow it up in any way, but a number of MPs did express concern and promised to look into the accessibility of their own websites. It would be interesting to see how many followed through, and how many were only paying lip service…
Jaybee responds:
Posted: May 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm →
Thanks for that Paul I’ll take a look as soon as I have this client site locked down. Might be interesting.
Jaybee responds:
Posted: May 3rd, 2007 at 2:00 am →
Well I’ve taken a quick look and all I can say is………….
OH DEAR! (heavily sanitised version of what I’d actually like to say)
I think I’m going to have to do a separate post for this lot.
JBVoices » Hypocrisy and the Accessible MP responds:
Posted: May 3rd, 2007 at 12:32 pm →
[…] Member of Parliament (MP) via his web site has expanded somewhat. You can read all about it in my Open letter to Richard Benyon MP but to summarise, having seen the parlous state of his site from and accessibility point of view, I […]
Isofarro responds:
Posted: May 7th, 2007 at 9:37 pm →
Its good to see people speaking up about the accessibility and the obligations of public organisations to serve the public. Its good that you’ve taken the initiative, but surely you could have made a better case about the accessibility of the site? Look at this:
“Fails - Markup Validation “Sorry! This document can not be checked.”
Fails - to reach even the absolute minimum Web Accessibility Initiative levels
Fails - to provide adequate keyboard navigation for those who cannot use a mouse or trackball.
Fails - to provide alternatives for those without javascript enabled
Fails - to operate correctly in browsers other than Internet Explorer.”
What’s you MP going to do about this - apart from pass it onto his web developer who then just shakes his head and says “Ahhh, just more sour grapes from my competition”.
Why not instead explain to your MP what is actually wrong with the site, in terms he can understand. That understanding he can use to approach his web developer. In terms of the level of this message, it went way over his head, and you gave him absolutely no room to understand what you were on about.
So the home page didn’t validate - is that such a big deal? Was there actually a validation error in there that compromised the real accessibility of the site? Why not explain those barriers and how they are a barrier to disabled people? You’ll get a lot further with kindness and a willingness to share knowledge than just technobabble griping.
When you talk about the minimum standards of Accessibility, why point to an automated tool? What’s that going to do to explain to your MP why he needs to make changes to his site. Automated tools are an aid to manual testing, not a replacement. Without knowledge and understanding, the results are meaningless, and you haven’t provided that knowledge and understanding.
Failed to provide adequate keyboard navigation - how so? Every part of the page was accessible via the keyboard. Even the navigation was at the end, so that the content was the first thing that was found. That sounds like good thinking to me. Tiny improvements are possible with a few skiplinks - but the tone of your letter makes it sound like the site is in dire staits in accessibility terms.
Failed to provide alternatives when javascript was disabled. So what? Assistive technology works fine with JavaScript. What’s an MP, with a typical MPs knowledge going to do with that piece of information?
Fails to operate in browsers other than Internet Explorer - how does this prevent disabled people from using the site? Is there something about Internet Explorer that prevents disabled people from using it?
I feel this letter is a failure to empower your MP to do what you expect of him. And so, instead of looking like a passionate advocacy of accessibility, its just an attack an MP can do nothing to resolve.