HACKER Q&A
📣 ricardo81

Critique a Council's website accessibility. Pass or fail?


In the UK I believe Councils are obliged by law to make information of public interest as accessible as possible when it's online. I'd appreciate people pointing out where/if this site is potentially in breach those obligations as I'm not entirely clued up on the laws other than the obligations to make info accessible.

I note that some browser/OS combinations will make the site fail entirely, i.e. Firefox/Linux. You may need to change your user agent to see the actual content of the site. It also takes a long time to load.

The site/issue is about a school campus being built on green space, due to COVID the 'public consultation' is entirely an online affair, via this website.

I suspect it will not be discoverable by search engines due to the user agent sniffing, so that's not so good for people wanting to find out more about this topic.

I've heard of campaigns against Council's actions succeeding based on the lack of effective public consultation and this is my main reason for wanting to scrutinise the site.

https://eyesiteview.co.uk/galacampus/informal-consultation/explore.pano?id=1

  👤 auslegung Accepted Answer ✓
You can use accessibility testing tools yourself, such as chrome’s built in Lighthouse[0], Axe tools[1], and I’m sure there are others. They won’t catch everything but they can catch a lot

[0]: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/ [1]: https://www.deque.com/axe/

👤 arkitaip
Any site that does not support Firefox Android is bound to have serious quality issues. Or maybe the implementation of the site is an act of malicious compliance designed to deter engagement and dissent.
👤 tacostakohashi
Perhaps its worth taking the time to clue yourself up about the relevant laws so that you can make this assessment for yourself.