Accessibility Statement – Media Access Australia

Commitment to accessibility

Media Access Australia is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We actively work to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so seek to adhere to standards and guidelines.

About this website

The Digital Accessibility Services website has been designed to be as inclusive as possible. Should you experience any difficulties or have any accessibility feedback for us, please use the form on the Contact page, the link for which can be found in the navigation menu. We will respond within one business day.

Media Access Australia purchased the Utility Pro theme from Carrie Dils, which is based on the Genesis framework and is accessibility-ready.

Two types of changes were made to the theme: branding changes and accessibility fixes.

Known issues

As the website is using widgets developed by third parties, despite each widget being remediated for accessibility issues there are two known issues that were unable to be rectified and this information has been supplied back to the theme’s developer.

The Contact Form (known as Contact form 7) did not allow enough control over the form markup to place the error messages within the label or before the relevant input, making them more difficult for screenreader users to understand and navigate. The Contact Form also does not send focus to the first error message or place the summary above the form, forcing keyboard-restricted users to backtrack through the form if they make an error. This issue does not prevent non-sighted users from using the form, but it does add to the complexity. The issue could be changed within the plugin code, but would be overwritten by the next plugin update and no CSS fallback is possible.
Leave a Reply links – While the ‘Read More’ links were able to be customised to allow for the addition of unique text that the link referred to, the Leave a Reply links did not, and these are repetitive when read out of context. Ideally they would have a unique addition to the text, such as the post title. We could not find a function to address this the way the Read More links were fixed.

Testing

The website has been tested on a number of mobile devices and displays will differ depending upon the type of device and its orientation (landscape or portrait mode). All functionality of the website is maintained for mobile devices.

Using this website

Text resize

You can use your browser’s zoom function to increase the text size. To use your browser’s zoom function please follow these instructions:

Microsoft Windows users:

Internet Explorer 7 and 8: Either select the ‘View’ menu and select the ‘Zoom’ option, or for keyboard users hold ‘Ctrl’ and press the ‘+’ (plus) or ‘-‘ (minus) keys.
Internet Explorer 9: Either select the ‘View’ option from the menu bar and select the ‘Zoom’, or for keyboard users hold ‘Ctrl’ and press the ‘+’ (plus) or ‘-‘ (minus) keys.
Firefox: Display the standard menus by going to the menu bar, select ‘View’ menu and select the ‘Zoom’ option, or for keyboard users hold ‘Ctrl’ and press the ‘+’ (plus) or ‘-‘ (minus) keys.

Mac / OSX users:

Safari: Either select the ‘View’ menu and select ‘Zoom In’ or ‘Zoom Out’, or for keyboard users hold ‘Command’ and press the ‘+’ (plus) or ‘-‘ (minus) keys.

Changing the colour scheme and contrast

Different browsers will allow you to customise the colour scheme and contrast levels to suit individual needs. Helpful information on the different browsers and methods for customising the font colours and background colours can be found on the BBC’s My Web My Way.

Navigation using a screen reader

We have endeavoured to maximise the ability for users with vision impairments to use a screen reader with this website. Visitors using recent versions of screen readers can navigate using the following keystrokes:

Headings

‘H’ to cycle forwards through the headings
‘Shift’ + ‘H’ to cycle backwards through the headings
‘1’ to navigate to the next level 1 heading (or a number between 1 and 6 to navigate to the next heading on this level)
‘Shift’ + ‘1’ to navigate to the previous level 1 heading (or a number between 1 and 6 to navigate to the previous heading on this level)
‘Insert’ + ‘F6’ to provide a list of all headings

Landmarks

Using JAWS® Versions 10-12, you can use the keyboard navigation in virtual mode by:

Next landmark: ‘;’ (semicolon)
Previous landmark: ‘Shift’ + ‘;’ (semicolon)
List of landmarks: ‘Ctrl’ + ‘Insert’ + ‘;’ (semicolon)

Using NVDA 2011.2 the landmark keyboard combination in virtual buffer mode is:

Next landmark: ‘D’
Previous landmark: ‘Shift’ + ‘D’
List landmarks (and list/headings): NVDA + ‘F7’

VoiceOver users can navigate a page via landmarks by choosing ‘landmarks’ in the ‘web rotor’, then finger flicking up or down will move to the next or previous landmark.

Navigation in Opera

If you are using Opera, you can use the ‘s’ key to cycle forwards through the headings, and the ‘w’ key to cycle backwards through the headings.

Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

This website endeavours to conform to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which explains how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. We are committed to achieving compliance with WCAG 2.0 to Level AA.

W3C standards

This site has been built using code compliant with W3C standards for HTML5 and cascading style sheets (CSS). The site displays correctly in current browsers and using standards compliant XHTML/CSS code means any future browsers will also display it correctly.

Exceptions

Whilst Media Access Australia strives to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards for accessibility and usability, if something isn’t working for you please let us know.

We are continually seeking out solutions that will bring all areas of the site up to the same level of overall accessibility. In the meantime should you experience any difficulty in accessing the Digital Accessibility Services website, please don’t hesitate to let us know by using the form on the Contact page, and being as specific as possible.

This link can be found in the navigation bar at the top of each page and we will respond within one business day.

If you have any questions regarding the accessibility assessment of this website, please let us know using the form on the Contact page. We appreciate and welcome your feedback and suggestions.

You can also contact us through the National Relay Service on +61 2 9212 6242. For more information, visit the National Relay Service website.

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