Australian Web Accessibility Resources
Summary
Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, generally all users have equal access to information and functionality.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG2.0)
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general.
WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable statements that are not technology-specific. Guidance about satisfying the success criteria in specific technologies, as well as general information about interpreting the success criteria, is provided in separate documents.
Read moreDisability Discrimination Act 1992.
The Disability Discrimination Act is an act passed by the Parliament of Australia in which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, education, publicly available premises, provision of goods and services, accommodation, clubs and associations, and other contexts. Discrimination is defined to include failing to make reasonable adjustments for the person.
Read moreA Cautionary Tale of Inaccessibility:
Sydney Olympics Website
Bruce Lindsay Maguire, a web user who has been blind from birth, who accesses the web by means of a refresh able braille display. He was unable to access a tickets for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The HREOC's ruling set a precedent that creating a website intended for use by and to inform the general public, where such a website is more accessible to a sighted user than the same intent and information is not available for a user who is blind by virtue of disability. They are therefore being discriminated against by lack of provision, and the creator of the website is in breach of the Cth DDA.
The HREOC ruled that the respondent pay damages of $20,000 AUD to the plaintiff.
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