Dr Scott Hollier on accessibility at the Australian Web Awards

Roberta: Today we have Doctor Scott Hollier with us, Media Access Australia Project Manager, to talk about the upcoming Australian Web Awards. Scott, and Sarah Pulis, also from Media Access Australia, will this year be involved in the judging process, which includes accessibility. Welcome Scott.

Dr Hollier: Thanks Roberta. Thanks for having me back.

Roberta: Now can you tell us a little about the Australian Web Awards?

Dr Hollier: Sure. The Australian Web Awards are run by the Australian Web Industry Association, or AWIA, and basically the awards are designed to really demonstrate excellence in web design. And it’s across a whole number of different areas including government, the corporate sector and not for profits. And yeah, look I think it’s really exciting to be involved.

Roberta: You’ve spoken with us about web accessibility before, so making websites usable by people with disabilities - accessibility is in the judging criteria for the award?

Dr Hollier: It is. And it’s really nice to have accessibility included. I think it’s really important when designing websites not just to have that innovative look or that really fantastic style that grabs people’s attention. But also to make sure it caters for usability and accessibility. So usability in terms of making sure that it’s easy to get around, it’s very effective in doing what the site’s designed to do. And also accessibility to make sure that people with disabilities particularly can get access to that information. I mean ultimately people who design websites really want everyone to have access to their information. So accessibility makes sense to be a really important criteria.

Roberta: And what’s involved in the judging process and what sort of things will you be basing your evaluation on?

Scott: Well what I can recommend to people is that if they look at the web standards that we’ve talked about from time to time, like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, that the W3C produced, and just look at the things in there. Things like ensure that there are text alternatives for images. Making sure that the video on a website is accessible with captions and audio description. Making sure that it’s really easy for people to understand. That it’s compatible with assistive technology. And a whole other variety of things within those guidelines. So in terms of your listeners specific to impairment we really encourage people to make sure there’s lots of good text alternatives, that it does work well with screen reader technologies, and yeah, is effective and really easy to use. So there’s lots of information out there and on our website that can really help people wanting to get accessibility right, and yeah, as part of this process we’d really encourage people to do so.

Roberta: Are Australian websites generally accessible?

Dr Hollier: Generally, no. [Laughing] I wish I could be the bearer of good news on this, but, yeah, to be honest accessibility in the wider industry of developers isn’t as well known. But having said that, in Australia in particular, things are really turning a corner. So although there’s not a lot of accessible websites out there at the moment I think with the government’s national transition strategy and that move by government to try to make things accessible, that we’ve discussed before. And there’s a whole number of groups popping up around the place where industry professionals are starting to get together and talk more about accessibility. So although Australia hasn’t had the best track record in this area, I think things are really turning a corner.

Roberta: It sounds as though we’re kind of getting there though, doesn’t it?

Dr Hollier: Yeah. We’re definitely making progress, and I mean you only have to go back two or three years ago and, although there’s still a lot of work to be done, we really are moving in the right direction on this.

Roberta: I think organizations are more aware now that they need to do this, aren’t they?

Dr Hollier: Definitely. Yeah. It’s great.

Roberta: Now how do Australian websites compare with those of other countries then?

Dr Hollier: Well I guess the one thing that is encouraging is that Australia used to lag behind a lot. But because of this government initiative, things are, we are starting to catch up now. Having said that, I mean overseas they do have a number of accessibility issues as well. There was a UK travel study recently that showed that, yeah, a lot of the travel websites aren’t very accessible. The English Government recently got in a bit of trouble because it has a lot of legislative support for accessible websites but some of theirs had slipped a bit recently. So accessibility isn’t an issue specific to Australia. There are other countries trying to do things and they also run into issues, but I think the fact there is so much awareness internationally and with the government initiative Australia is catching up now. And even things like having accessibility including web awards is just a fantastic step forward that accessibility’s getting more recognition.

Roberta: Well that’s just excellent. Now when are these awards going to be held?

Dr Hollier: They’re coming up very soon. We’ve got lots of information on the news item on our website, so… strongly encourage people to go to the website where we’ve got all the details, mediaaccess.org.au.

Roberta: That’s fantastic. Or you can phone 02 9212 6242. Thanks for talking with me today, Scott.

Dr Hollier: No worries, Roberta. Thanks a lot.

Roberta: I’ve been speaking with Doctor Scott Hollier, Media Access Australia Project Manager, and Media Access Australia are supporters of this program.