How does the DDA apply to websites in employment?
Websites may be covered under the employment provisions of the Act, for example, they may be a means of advertising jobs or there may be an intranet which staff need to use. Under the Act an employer is obliged to make reasonable adjustments where a “policy criterion or practice” places a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage. Below we list a number of examples of inaccessible websites which may contravene the Act in the area of employment: • It may be unlawful for a website to have links which are not accessible to a screen reader • The application forms found on a website are in a PDF format that cannot be read by a screen reader • The size of text, colour contrasting and formatting of a website might make it inaccessible to a partially sighted job applicant • An employee may find it difficult to access his employer’s intranet because of inappropriate colour contrasting and font size • Links/Documents on an employer’s intranet may be inaccessible to an employee using a screen
