A DCU survey looked at 159 websites operated by Irish organisations andfound every one failed to meet standard disability guidelines

"If anyone asks me what the internet means to me, I will tell him without hesitation: To me (a quadriplegic) the internet occupies the most important part in my life. It is my feet that can take me to any part of the world; it is my hands which help me to accomplish my work; it is my best friend - it gives my life meaning." Dr ZhangXu in his book Zhangxu and Aldis, 2001

Like many people with a disability, Mr Esmond Walsh relies on the internet to help him study, work and discover new interests in his life.

Totally blind, he must use specialist speech synthesis software to access and decipher most websites. It works by transforming the text on each Web page into speech so that he can hear it, rather than rely on visual access.

"The internet is a useful tool for me because it opens up new areas that were previously inaccessible. I can read newspapers online or check the football results," says Mr Walsh, who uses software called JAWS to access the internet.

Unfortunately, many websites remain inaccessible to visually impaired users because of poor design, and the use of techniques which restrict the ability of speech software to make sense of a site.

One of the biggest problems is that software cannot detect images used to convey information. Often it will just be able to give the filename of an image, rather than interpret what the image means, says Mr Walsh.

Many sites also include Macromedia's Flash software which enables sites to incorporate powerful video, multimedia, and application development features. But often this is not recognisable by some speech software, he says.

This experience of sites that were unsuitable for blind people was one reason Mr Walsh joined a research team at DCU set up to study whether Irish websites conformed to guidelines set by World Wide Web Consortium, intended to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.

These guidelines were set in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1 published by the World Wide Web Consortium in 1999. They define a series of checkpoints which, if satisfied by a website, will ensure it has a high likelihood of being accessible to the widest possible variety of users - not just disabled users but also the general community.

In the words of Mr Tim Berners-Lee, one of the "inventors" of the Web and a director of the consortium, who helped frame the guidelines: "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect..."

But the results of the two-year DCU study - published yesterday - make shocking reading and show few Web designers or directors of organisations are following the guidelines.

The research team, part-funded by AIB Bank, investigated 159 websites operated by Irish organisations and found every single site studied failed to meet the consortium's guidelines.

Just 6 per cent of the websites met the consortium's minimum standard even though these design guidelines were also endorsed by the European Commission and the Irish National Disability Authority.

The research team used a software package called Bobby, and wrote extra customised software code, to analyse each website to conclude whether it met consortium guidelines. Of the 25 specific accessibility barriers studied, the most pervasive defects in Irish sites as outlined in the guidelines include: missing text equivalents for images, defective HTML coding and meaningless hypertext links (see table below for full explanation).

No website operated by the Government - including the Arts Council, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Revenue Online, the Department of Defence and Dublin City University - met guideline criteria. This is despite a declared target that all Government Department websites should have implemented the guidelines by end 2001 in the context of the E-Europe Action Plan. This prompted the report to conclude that despite Ireland's justifiable pride in its economic and technological development, "the current commitment to accessibility of the Irish Web for users with disabilities is at best, aspirational and at worst cynically inadequate."

Dr Barry McMullin, author of the report and lecturer at the Research Institute for Networks and Communications Engineering in DCU, says the failure by firms or public bodies to make websites accessible could lead to legal challenges from disabled users. He cites the first successful legal cases taken against the operator's of the Sydney Olympics site on accessibility. Victory in this case was a major milestone in this field, says Dr McMullin.

He says the report should not be used to beat organisations into complying with guidelines but used to raise awareness of the issue among Web designers and help disabled people exploit internet technologies so they might improve their lives. And it is not just the visually impaired who are affected by poorly designed sites, says Dr McMullin.

"A growing proportion of websites include multimedia material and this may not be accessible for deaf users or people with other sensory deficiencies," he says.

People with impaired mobility may be unable to use a regular mouse to navigate so websites should be designed with alternatives. Websites should also present information in a logical manner to help people with cognitive challenges, says Dr McMullin, who believes following the guidelines would make it easier for all Web users.

The report recommends publishing a new detailed timetable for all Government websites to conform to consortium's compliance standard, and that the private sector should initiate similar commitments. It also calls for training materials and courses to be developed in line with Web design guidelines. This would enable designers and professional bodies to eliminate design flaws.

Further research and legislation with a set of explicit and legally enforceable standards for accessibility of all Web products and services to disabled users, is also recommended.

This type of commitment from the Government and Web designers would be welcomed at Enable Ireland's offices in Sandymount which only recently established computer and Web classes for people with disabilities.

Ms Collette Brown, a computer instructor at Enable Ireland, has seen interest in the Web increase rapidly as the assistive technologies which her students require to use computers becomes available.

"We usually get them to set up e-mail addresses... and many students look up information on the soaps or music on the internet," she says. "I do find that the sites in Ireland aren't always as accessible as some in Britain."

The DCU research team, under Dr McMullin's leadership, will shortly begin a separate study to benchmark Irish websites against their international counterparts. It will be interesting to see if Web designers will react to the conclusions of DCU's initial study.