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Government pivots on web access
Transcript
12 January 2014
Roberta: Just before Christmas, the Australian government released a report on how it’s progressing towards making its websites accessible to people with disabilities. The report signals a change in this approach to this National Transition Strategy, and as Dr Scott Hollier explains, it might not be for the better. Welcome Scott.
Scott: Thanks Roberta, great to have you back, and happy New Year.
Roberta: And happy New Year to you too. Now, what is the National Transition Strategy?
Scott: The National Transition Strategy, or NTS as we generally call it, is a strategy that was put in place a few years ago to try and make websites more accessible. So the aim of the strategy is based on the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, or WCAG, as we tend to call it. And the aim to use those standards to make websites accessible across government in terms of Federal, State and also Local governments are particularly headed up by the Federal government. The aim of the strategy was to make the sites meet the minimum Level A standards by the end of 2012, and then the AA standard by the end of this year, 2014.
Roberta: So why is it so important Scott?
Scott: Well, particularly for people who are blind and vision impaired the NTS is really important because it’s because a commitment from the government to say that, “We will make our websites accessible.” One of the things with accessibility is that you can buy a lot of devices with accessibility features like iPads and phones that we’ve talked about on this programme, and they come with screen readers and a lot of different assisted technologies. But those technologies will only really work if websites are built for this WCAG standard. So the NTS is really exciting in showing that Australia was making a commitment in this area, and also internationally other countries had made a fair bit of progress in this area and we’d lagged behind a bit. So the NTS was a really exciting policy announcement because it meant that Australia was taking accessibility seriously and really helping make government information accessible.
Roberta: Has it been a success so far?
Scott: Well the report, as you mentioned in the introduction, has just come out; it came out just before Christmas last year, and unfortunately it hasn’t been as successful as we had hoped. So the government statistics have confirmed that currently about one in four websites actually meet that WCAG standard, and only 39% of new websites have been accessible. So this is disappointing, both in terms of myself as a legally blind person and also as a Media Access Australia staff member. We’ve been a bit surprised, disappointed that the stats haven’t been better than that; they had committed to have all government websites accessible by the end of 2012, so yeah, to say that only one in four have actually got there has, you know, that is disappointing and it just means that unfortunately a lot of information still remains inaccessible.
Roberta: So what did the government announce?
Scott: Well in addition to the statistics the government said, it basically acknowledged the fact that it hasn’t progressed as fast as they had hoped. They’ve also acknowledged that by the end of this year, 2014, that it’s unlikely that, in fact they’ve pretty much said that there are a number of government websites that will not comply by the end of this year, and a year out to already be saying that, again, disappointing. But one thing that is worth, in fairness to the government, is that progress has been made; if we go back a few years there was very little in terms of accessibility, so in fairness there has been progress, and the government have committed to continuing the NTS this year and working hard to try and get as many websites as accessible as possible, so there is still work being done. There’s also scores of staff which have been employed specifically to help with accessibility, so I see that as a positive. And they are going to continue in some form, trying to make websites accessible after the NTS deadline at the end of this year. So there are movements in the right direction and progress is still being make, but just disappointing not at the speed we were hoping for.
Roberta: Mm, so what does all this mean for those who are blind or vision impaired?
Scott: Well the upshot of it is Roberta that there’s still a lot of government information that is not accessible, and even by the end of this year it’s likely that a lot of the information won’t be accessible. So what I would encourage your listeners to do is they do try to access government websites and find the information’s just not working for their screen reader or magnifier or whatever assisted technology they’re using, is to get in touch, contact the relevant Department, let them know that there are issues. They have suggested that there will be new ways to get in touch, so we’re looking forward to seeing what some of those might be; yeah, just raise those concerns. And of course, at Media Access we’re always happy to also talk to people; we aim to be a catalyst for change and we’re very happy to provide support in that process as well.
Roberta: Well, to find out more about how you, our listeners, can access websites, you can call the team at Media Access Australia on (02) 9212 6242, and if you’re wanting to learn more about how websites are made accessible you can visit mediaaccess.org.au. Thank you for all of that today Scott, and I hope that when we speak about this particular subject next there’ll be more progress being made.
Scott: Yes, I’ll try to be more positive next time. [laughs] Thanks a lot Roberta.
Roberta: We’ve been speaking with Dr Scott Hollier, a lecturer in Web Accessibility and Project Manager for Media Access Australia. And Media Access Australia is a supporter of this programme.