Web awards encourage accessibility in Australia

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Friday, 25 October 2013 16:22pm

The annual Australian Web Industry Association’s (AWIA) Awards were held last night in Sydney. This was the culmination of a number of state finals held in the previous month. The Awards recognise achievement and innovation by web agencies over the last year.

Media Access Australia supports the Awards and is a sponsor of the Government category. Our project manager Dr Scott Hollier was one of team of experts who assessed the accessibility of each nominated website.

Accessibility, which in past years had its own award, was a strong theme through the ceremony, advocated passionately by AWIA Chairman Bret Treasure. He told the audience that accessibility was a key criterion for judging and that all of the chosen entries had to have some notable levels of accessibility to eligible.

In an interview with Access iQ: Treasure said, “We’ve decided that having an award for accessibility makes it look like a niche, or special interest area. Our aim is to raise levels of awareness in the broader web community and generate a conversation that results in change across the board.”

After presenting at the ceremony, our CEO Alex Varley said, “The message of accessibility was loud and clear. The audience was mainly under-40, reflecting the developer industry profile, and Bret reminded them that one day accessibility would be a part of their lives as vision, hearing and mobility issues took hold. 

“Importantly, he rallied everyone into making accessibility part of the industry and that AWIA members had a duty to promote it to their clients and use it as part of the standard development process.”

The Government Award was won by agency Revium for its work on Energy Made Easy. See the full list of Australian Web Awards 213 winners.


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