What Is The British Standards Institute Codes Of Practice?

Date First Published: 30th December 2023

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Legislation & User Data Protection

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 6/10

Learn about what the British Standards Institute Codes Of Practice is in this article.

The British Standards Institute Codes Of Practice is a set of guidelines for fulfilling the requirements set in the Equality Act, which are putting proper provisions in place to ensure that IT systems are accessible. They are not designed to be in place of accessibility guidelines, like WCAG, but should be included in the production of a web product. The British Standards Institute are an organisation that define standards for best practice in different areas and have defined ICT accessibility standards as part of this.

Codes Of Practice

The Web Accessibility Codes Of Practice define 16 steps to comply with the standards. These are:

1. Define the purpose of the web product.
2. Define the target audiences for the web product.
3. Analyse the needs of the target audiences for the web product.
4. Note any platform or technology preferences and restrictions of the web product’s target audiences.
5. Define the relationship the product will have with its target audiences.
6. Define the user goals and tasks the web product needs to provide.
7. Consider the degree of user experience the web product will aim to provide.
8. Consider inclusive design and user-personalized approaches to accessibility.
9. Choose the delivery platforms to support.
10. Choose the target browsers, operating systems and assistive technologies to support.
11. Choose whether to create or procure the web product in-house or contract out externally.
12. Define the web technologies to be used in the web product.
13. Use web guidelines to direct accessible web production.
14. Assure the web product’s accessibility through production.
15. Communicate the web product’s accessibility decisions at launch.
16. Plan to assure accessibility in all post-launch updates to the product.

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