There is no doubt that access to the world wide web and tools such as email is increasing dramatically - for many people.  People with a disability can network, study, work, and shop online to a much greater extent than ever before - and this access will continue to increase.

The door is opening wider and wider, but it is still far from fully open. 

Without careful attention during planning and design, full access will not be achieved.  This has serious consequences for individuals denied access, and for web publishers who are missing a segment of their audience, and risking a complaint of unjust discrimination.

The reports mentioned below identify the scale of accessibility - or inaccessibility - of three samples of web sites.

2003 Report on "How accessible are Australian university sites?"

http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/web/slideshows/accessibility-universities/

This page refers to a study of all 45 Australian university web sites.  98% of sites failed to meet the most basic requirements for accessibility.  The page includes links to specific results of the study.

Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users with Disabilities

Pernice Coyne and Jakob Nielsen http://www.nngroup.com/reports/accessibility/

This study confirmed that the web was not very accessible to people with a disability.  The report stated that:

• Users with disabilities were about three times less likely to succeed in carrying out such routine web tasks as searching for information and making purchases as users in the control group.

• The control group of people without disabilities succeeded 78.2% of the time as against about 26% for the users with disabilities.

• The figures for people using screen readers and screen magnifiers were 12.5% and 21.4%, respectively.   

• These figures do not reflect incompetence or inexperience on the users' part.  Test participants who were blind had been using computers and assistive technology for more than three years.

This report costs around AU$200 to download.  There is a useful review and summary of the report written by John Slatin, published in Information Technology and Disability, Vol 8, 2002

http://www.rit.edu/~easi/itd/itdv08n2/review2.htm

Web Accessibility and the Private Sector: Disability stakeholders cannot tolerate 2% access!

R.E. Milliman, Information Technology and Disability, Vol 8, 2002

http://www.rit.edu/~easi/itd/itdv08n2/milliman.htm

This study used an automated accessibility test (Bobby) to assess 1080 web sites in the United States of America.  Of these, 19 met all the requirements of the Bobby test.  This study also looked at knowledge of web managers in the area of accessible web design, and asked managers what it would take for them to take the step to ensure access of web sites.