Web accessibility is key to digital inclusion
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This document discusses web accessibility and the importance of digital inclusion. It notes that web accessibility creates online experiences that can be used by people of all abilities and ages. It is a key vehicle for digital inclusion and will become more necessary as social changes occur. The document provides practical tips for improving web accessibility, such as adding alt text to images, providing transcripts for audio and video, and ensuring sufficient color contrast. It also discusses compliance with laws and standards like the Disability Discrimination Act. Overall it promotes accessibility, inclusion, and equal access to online information and services.
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Web accessibility is key to digital inclusion
- 1. Web accessibility: it’s not a dirty word Darren Fittler, Lawyer, Gilbert + Tobin Amajjika Kumara, Business Director, Access iQ
- 2. Digital engagement and inclusion Everyone should have the potential to interact with the economy and society via the internet in some way that addresses their needs Twitter: @accessiq2
- 3. Pre vision loss, I used the internet for a lot of things. Post vision loss, I use it for everything.
- 4. What are the practical effects of inaccessible online experiences?
- 5. Web accessibility • Creating digital or online experiences that are accessible to people of all abilities and ages • A key vehicle for digital inclusion • Social changes will make web accessibility a necessity Twitter: @accessiq5
- 9. Government is mandated to meet international web accessibility requirements Equal access to online information and services is the law under the Disability Discrimination Act
- 10. Everyone has a Corporate Social Responsibility to provide equal access to customers and staff US procurement laws require all products to be accessible
- 11. Accessibility is inclusion Twitter: @accessiq11 Vision Hearing Mobility Cognitive Low vision Blind Colour blind Eyes-free environments Deaf Hearing impaired Noisy places Work Muscular dystrophy Arthritis RSI Learning disability ADHD
- 12. Understanding WCAG 2.0 Principles Guidelines Success Criteria Techniques Perceivable Guidelines 1.2: Time-based Media Success Criteria 1.2.1: Audio-only and video-only (prerecorded) G158: Providing an alternative for time- based media for audio-only content
- 13. • Make changes that fix issues across the website • Address easy changes first • Include accessibility in your procurement process Low hanging fruit
- 14. • Perform a technical audit of your systems • Focus on understanding how to create accessible content • Provide an Accessibility Statement for visitors (include email link for visitors to communicate problems with web page accessibility) • Provide a second version of any document in PDF. Use an accessible format such as HTML. • Attach "ALT" tags to graphic images so that screen readers can identify the graphic. Low hanging fruit
- 15. Low Hanging Fruit • Caption all audio and video clips. • Provide descriptive words in any link text. Do not use links like “read more" or "click here" alone. • Provide an alternative mechanism for online forms, such as a phone number or email address. • Avoid the use of tables for layout of content. • Don’t rely on colour alone to convey meaning
- 16. Remove critical barriers – tech audits Accessibility Barrier Scores Description Reference Incidence Severity Remediation Images without appropriate text alternatives (alt text) 1.1.1 2 1 Low Insufficient colour contrast between foreground (text) and background 1.4.3 2 3 High
- 17. Strategies for dealing with legacy content
- 18. Education and awareness raising Accessibility as part of business as usual Understanding and awareness Education tailored to a person’s role within the department
- 19. Disability Action Plan Form a plan of action Lodge with Australian Human Rights Commission
- 20. ICT Accessibility Maturity Model Scorecard
- 21. Web accessibility know how Level 3, 616-620 Harris St Ultimo NSW 2007 t: +61 2 8218 9320 e: knowhow@accessiq.org @accessiq accessiq.org
Editor's Notes
- A video was shown demonstrating a screen reader navigating websites and highlighting inaccessibility.
- This is just the declared stats through the ABS. But many Baby Boomers would have a vision or hearing impairment but would never declare that they have a disability on the census. So using the ABS stats as a justification is leaving yourself open to underestimating the size and impact of the problem for your organisation.
- Accessibility is not just a disability issue.Curb cut example – everyone benefits – strollers, bikes, mobility scooters, wheely bags, couriers.
- If we don't make our digital strategy accessible, how can we achieve the engagement/inclusion sweetspot?How do we avoid alienating or ignoring the present and future needs one of the largest demographic segments (people over 55) without creating significant cost blowouts because our digital channels are inaccessible? If your digital channels are inaccessible then you need to question any assumptions made on cost savings, maximising engagement or customer satisfaction.
- The Australian Government has also issued advice on how to ensure accessibility is part of the procurement process but it is not law. You should start to insist that vendors comply with the W3C and WCAG 2.0 – this includes software and suppliers of PDF’s!
- Conformance requirementsAt the very highest level, WCAG 2 is broken up into 4 principles: that content must be perceivable, that it must be operable, that is must be understandable and that it must be robust.There are also 12 guidelines in WCAG 2.0, each of which belongs to a particular principle. The 12 guidelines are then broken up into Success Criteria.The techniques are more helpful “how to’s” related to specific topic areas.
- Technical Audit – will provide you with an excellent roadmap on what needs fixingAccessibility Statement – place it at the at the top of the pagePDF - Don’t make it the primary version – could be a challenge for law documents. Include the word "PDF" and size of file in the link description to any PDF document. ALT Tags – should always be present – if image is purely decorative the alt tag should be present but be empty to prevent the file name from being read out by screen readers. Also provide a caption or link to a description of a photograph that contributes to the context and meaningof the content. For example, graphs or charts should have a long description that describes what the image is portraying (if it’s not clearly articulated in the content).
- Captioning – is easy to do yourself using free tools – we recommend outsourcing anything longer than 5 minutes or videos with multiple speakers.Links – describe screen reader navigationAlternatives: Alternative processes or Document Format (To obtain this information in an accessible format, please call XXX voice or XXX TTY).Colour – common misuses are in error handling on forms – fix the boxes in red.
- You can use a technical audit to provide a road map to approach accessibility in discrete pieces of work which can also be planned and costed separately.
- You need to have a strategy for legacy content or systems - there might be business processes that need to be created offline if something simply cannot be made accessible. Consider investigating enabling technologies.
- Understand the journey you’re on!This is a self-assessment tool designed to help you improve the accessibility of your ICT systems, products and services. It helps you understand that web accessibility involves more than just one area of the organisation and for it to be implemented correctly, taking the approach of it being a strategic management objective (rather than an ICT task) will deliver superior results. This tool will help you to develop a robust policy for digital inclusion. This policy should be developed with reference to your disability, flexible working and other relevant policies. The AMM approach enables an organisation to make an informed choice about the legal risks of overlooking accessibility. The AMM is not designed to benchmark your organisation externally but to help your organisation make a decision about your approach to accessibility.To understand accessibility performance at a glance.Tohelp a project team to strategically plan and improve accessibility performance.