Natalie Collins, Deputy CEO of Media Access Australia, shares some digital accessibility discoveries and suggests all Victorian local governments complete a Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessment.
It’s a regularly heard musing – local governments are being stretched, and are required to do more for their residents with existing funds and rates. It is little wonder then that the quest to provide information and services in more efficient ways leads managers to their websites and digital forms of communication.
Having worked with a number of local governments in Victoria and completing Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessments for them, it’s clear to me that many are aware of the cost savings and efficiency gains from doing business online. A well-referenced 2012 UK report shows considerable per-transaction cost efficiencies for online customer contact, with the average cost of an online transaction being 15 pence, in comparison to £8.62 for face-to-face and £2.83 for phone customer transactions. [1]
What is a Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessment?
A Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessment (DAMA) allows local government to understand how advanced their business processes and practices are in addressing the legal and policy requirement to make digital media – websites, apps, documents, video and content – accessible to the broadest possible audience. This includes people with disabilities, older Australians, those from non-English-speaking backgrounds and those with varying levels of education.
The maturity model benchmarks methods and processes against compliance and best practice, and provides a scorecard and road map for local governments to improve digital accessibility.
9 key digital accessibility trends in local government
The Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessments completed by local governments throughout 2014-15 tell us the following:
- Help is required to assist local governments understand and wade through the myriad of issues relating to digital accessibility, including website accessibility and audits, accessible documents, Word document templates, digital communications, events, budgeting and funding, and planning for and prioritising digital accessibility.
- The overwhelming business driver for considering digital accessibility is the need for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and the Disability Discrimination Act (Cth) 1992.
- There is no budget set aside for accessibility; however the likelihood increases with a well thought through and presented business case. Common examples of work include web accessibility audits, training in creating accessible content and, increasingly, working to make existing documents accessible.
- Senior management is not aware of the overall benefits of making digital communications accessible and middle management is hamstrung by needing to comply but not always able to influence up.
- Support is required to embed digital accessibility into procurement and the vendor assessment criteria for digital systems and content service procurements. Almost all local governments do not adequately assess and test digital accessibility during the purchasing process.
- Digital accessibility is championed by the communications team, as it is predominantly their responsibility to manage the website and web content.
- There are significant challenges in increasing awareness and skilling up staff to create accessible documents and content with decentralised authoring of content.
- There is little use of online video, either because there is no budget and resourcing, or there is little knowledge of accessible media platforms and how to apply quality captions and audio description to make videos accessible.
- Most local governments are not aware that aspects of popular social media are not accessible to people with disabilities and do not know of the alternatives.
It is fair to say that local government is just starting to deal with accessibility as part of its customer and digital strategy. With limited resource allocation being a key issue, identifying cost-effective priorities for action is a vital first step. The DAMA is the perfect tool for doing that and setting up an ongoing plan for future stages.
[1] Transforming local public services: Using technology and digital tools and approaches. Reducing the cost of customer contact, page 22.