Web site accessibility is one of those perennial topics we cover with monotonous regularity here at IT Week. You know, along with compliance, spam problems, IT skills crises etc. Nomensa, the accessibility specialists, do a lot of research trying to evaluate and highlight the web sites of sector specific organisations, and usually find they're all terrible. And all this despite the Disability Discrimination Act stating, since 1995, that sites must be "reasonably adjusted" to make them open to all. That’s part of the problem of course; the language of said legislation is so typically wooly and open to interpretation that most firms get away with non-compliance.

So up has stepped industry body the Interactive Media in Retail Group to try and push online retailers et al to take steps to improve their sites. Their new toolbar, produced in association with Hidden Differences Group, includes functionality to change the background colour of web pages, text-to-speech functionality that manages to sound reasonably un-Stephen Hawking like, and a screen magnification option. All sounds pretty good really, except that while it is definitely a step in the right direction, it is definitely not a silver bullet. The risk is that firms will see it as just that though; a quick fix to make them compliant with DDA and an instant way to include all those previously left out in the internet wilderness, and their wallets.