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Nomensa estimates that retailers will lose £376 million of potential revenue this Christmas as a result of websites that are difficult to use.

'There are over 10 million disabled people in the UK, and I believe that each one of those has a right to be able to buy a Christmas present online for a friend or loved one this year,' said Simon Norris, Nomensa's managing director. 'These research findings show that anyone with serious physical impairments, the visually impaired or even just people wearing glasses to read would encounter difficulties and in many cases would give up trying.'

The survey found that not one homepage achieves

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Single-A compliance - the minimum requirement by law - and only three Terms and Condition pages achieved Single-A accessibility. Among the other findings: 23 websites had search forms, navigational links or advertising banners that failed to work without Javascript; 29 used graphical text that would be difficult for people wearing glasses to read; 25 used pop-up windows, causing significant problems for people with a variety of disabilities; and 29 did not use shortcut links to help people with serious physical impairments navigate through a page.

Just two sites of the 30 tested, Apple Computer and John Lewis, provided appropriate text descriptions for all images which helps people who are blind or partially sighted understand the purpose of visual content. John Lewis was also praised, along with Marks and Spencer and Tesco, for 'showing particular consideration of accessibility'.

Nomensa said that the commercial benefits of Web accessibility are considerable and 'far outweigh' the costs of implementing an accessible website. It noted that in addition to being more accessible to a potential 10 million new shoppers, accessible websites are also more search engine friendly and more cost effective to run and maintain.