Is your website compliant?

Does your website comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and other laws?

Recently a SSAA Member asked this question of our legal department and it is worth sharing with all member for awareness. The act reads: If you have a web site or are building a website, web designers should be aware that providing access to the navigational features of web resources is not sufficient to make the resource fully accessible. The way in which web content is presented or published will also affect its accessibility. For example, material that is presented only in an image-based format such as GIF or TIF will not be accessible to some people with a disability, including people who are blind or have low vision and who therefore rely on braille, syntheticspeech, or screen-magnified output to read computer screens.

The accessibility of documents published on the web is best achieved by following general principles of accessible document design from the earliest stages of authoring. It is generally more difficult and time-consuming to add accessibility features in the final stages of publishing. The accessibility of a document depends on a number of factors, and is not guaranteed merely by publishing it in a particular format. Factors that must be taken into account include: l The use of features that provide consistent information about the structure of the content (for example, the use of styles to indicate headings rather than manually changing the font attributes in a document); l The provision of text descriptions for all meaningful graphics, and l The avoidance of features that are known to be inaccessible (such as including scanned text images).

Document authors and content managers should familiarise themselves with the Guidelines for Accessible E-text produced by the Round Table on Information Access for people with Print Disabilities Inc., available at www. printdisability.org These guidelines provide more detailed information about the principles that should be followed when designing accessible documents. The website states: Testing for accessibility should also be incorporated into all user testing regimes, and should never be seen as an isolated event that can occur after other testing has taken place. Designing for accessibility is thus as much a strategic issue as a purely technical one. The link mentions: l Current screen-reading software is not able to interpret information or links presented only in graphical or

“image-only” format. l Content provided only in audio format will not be accessible to Deaf people or some people with hearing impairments unless a text alternative is provided. l Although users can determine many aspects of colour, size and print font of output for themselves, some approaches to text form or colour will render access difficult or impossible for users who have low vision (and in some cases for many other users also).

Australia and New Zealand are both signatories to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 21 of the Convention states: “all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise the right to freedom of expression and opinion, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas on an equal basis with others and through all forms of communication of their choice”…. Including: a) Providing information intended for the general public to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner and without additional cost; b) Accepting and facilitating the use of sign languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disability in official interactions; c) Urging private entities that provide services to the general public, including through the internet, to provide information and services in accessible and usable formats for persons with disabilities; etc. l

For further information, please refer to the Australian Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes ver 4.1 (2014) at the website below: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/ world-wide-web-access-disabilitydiscrimination-act-advisory-notesver-41-2014

There are updated New Zealand web standards which come into effect in July: https://www.digital.govt.nz/ standards-and-guidance/ nz-government-web-standards/newweb-standards-for-july-2019/