The
World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the Web,
particularly for people with physical disabilities who use wide range
of user agent devices (eg.screenreaders), not just standard web
browsers to access the internet.
The W3C was founded in 1994. The WAI has gone on to develop a set of
guidelines that can help to make websites more accessible, especially
from the view of physically disabled people. Applying these guidelines
is viewed as good practice throughout the web community and in 1995 the
Disability Discrimination Act was passed making it unlawful to
discriminate against people in respect of their disabilities in
relation to the provision of goods and services. To see the guidelines
in full, visit www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php.