Dos and dont's of Web accessibility legislation

On 21 June 2013 the Norwegian government approved the regulation for the Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act (ADA), and new web sites that are aimed the Norwegian public were given one year to become accessible according to the standard provided in the regulation. Existing web sites have until 2021 to do the same. This thesis looks at how Norway is dealing with this web accessibility legislation. As the regulation has so recently been approved one focus has been on how similar legislation in other countries has been dealt with. There has also been an emphasis on how web development practitioners address web accessibility, since they are among the first people who implement such legislation. The methods that were used were interview, literature survey and web site assessment. The interviews were with the Norwegian web accessibility legislation's supervisory authority, an accessibility expert, and representatives from a public institution and a private business. The findings from the interviews showed that the supervisory authority has enforcement capabilities, but that they lack a specific plan for how they are going to supervise the legislation. The public institution and private business respondents reported that they had not heard about the legislation from the government, but had found out about it through other channels. The literature survey findings showed that critical factors for a successful implementation of web accessibility legislation were: education and training; government legislation; and, good tools. It was also found that in addition to having web accessibility legislation, it was important that the government enforced it and promoted it well. The conclusion is that the situation for Norway has both positive and negative sides. The fact that there is a legislation concerning web accessibility, and that a supervisory authority has been provided and given enforcement capabilities, is good. However, the situation could benefit from a more intensive promotion of the legislation and regulation