Make content accessible - digital guide

Before you begin

This guide is for all Victorian public servants who create digital content.

Being accessible ensures everyone has the same access to your content. To do this well, you need to be aware of the diverse range of needs in the community and how to plan and create your content with accessibility in mind.

For guidance on creating accessible print documents, hosting accessible events and communicating in person with various disability groups, read these guidelines.

Explaining accessibility

Digital content can be difficult for users with disabilities to navigate and process. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992(opens in a new window) requires agencies to ensure people with disabilities have the same access to information and services as others in the community.

Online, this means to design and build digital content that meets the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) accessibility guidelines, so that if you’re a person with one or more of the impairments in this list, you’ll still be able to access the content:

• auditory: hard of hearing, deafness
• cognitive and neurological: learning disabilities, distractibility, difficulties remembering, focusing on large amounts of information
• physical: difficulties using a mouse or keyboard, limited fine motor control, slower response time
• speech: difficulty producing speech for the purposes of speech recognition services or people
• visual: degrees of impairment in one or both eyes, colour blindness, sensitivity to bright colours

Making content accessible

The Victorian Government is committed to open and inclusive communication principles, including providing accessible digital content and services to all Australians regardless of disability, culture, or environment. Making content accessible ensures that the information the Victorian Government publishes online is universally accessible.

There are over 1 million people living with a disability in Victoria: that’s around 20% of the population.

People can have a disability from birth, disease, illness or accident. Disabilities can also be temporary. Many of us will develop impairments as we age.

You should also consider the communication needs of people:

• recovering from accidents or illness
• with chronic health issues
• who are ageing
• with English as a second language
• who can’t use, or struggle, with digital services
• on different devices
• who have low literacy.

It is both a legal obligation and a human right for people with disabilities to be able to access information, services and opportunities offered through government programs.

The Government of South Australia’s Online Accessibility Toolkit(opens in a new window) has more about why accessibility is important.

Using appropriate language

The language you use in your communication should be positive and inclusive when referring to people with a disability.

Examples of this include ‘person with disability’ ‘people who are deaf’, and ‘person who uses a wheelchair’.

You should also use terms like ‘person without disability’. Never use the terms ‘non-disabled’ or ‘able-bodied’.

People with a disability often don’t see themselves as disabled, and the language we use should reflect this. Read more guidance and examples on communicating with people with a disability.

What the Victorian Government recommends

All Victorian Government online services must comply with WCAG 2.1 Accessibility standards (Level AA).

These standards apply to both internal and external digital content.

Mandatory standards

Accessibility

Comply with the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Disability Discrimination Act 1992(opens in a new window) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.1(opens in a new window) Level AA standard.

Legislation at both state and commonwealth levels protects the rights of people with disabilities:

• Disability Act 2006 (Vic)(opens in a new window)
• Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic)(opens in a new window)
• Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic)(opens in a new window)

The State Disability Plan 2022–2026 commits every Victorian Government department to 6 reforms of policies, programs and services including Accessible communications and universal design.

These standards apply to your externally published documents, internal documents and intranet sites. You should provide evidence of your compliance through an internal or external audit, with an action plan to address any issues.

Other guiding legislation and international conventions

In 2010, through the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy (NTS), the Australian Government implemented a policy of web accessibility.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes to help reduce the risk of disability discrimination.

The Australian Government has also approved the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Articles 9 and Article 21 state access to information, communications, and services (including the internet) is a human right.

Branding

Apply Brand Victoria. Refer to apply Brand Victoria - digital guide, specifically written for digital.

Easy to read

Your content must be easy to read. To do this, your content should:

• use plain language (writing that is clear, simple and avoids jargon, bureaucratic terms and acronyms)
• use short sentences
• tell people exactly what they need to know.

Our writing guidelines can help you through the process.

Understanding Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1)(opens in a new window) are designed to make websites universally accessible. They also improve the experience for users without disabilities.

There are three levels of WCAG conformance:

• Level A: the minimum level
• Level AA: the medium level
• Level AAA: the highest level

The WCAG guidelines are globally accepted as best practices for web development. Each individual guideline (for example, contrast) has measurable success criteria. There are various online tests and tools you can use (they’re listed further on) to check if your web content complies, and how well.

In Victoria, the minimum requirement for all digital content is Level AA.

SA Government accessibility toolkit

The Australian and Victorian governments use the South Australian accessibility toolkit(opens in a new window) as a best practice guide for content and communications specialists, visual designers, user experience, developers and project managers – an overview of the guidelines from the sa.gov.au accessibility toolkit.

You can also refer to the WCAG guide(opens in a new window) itself.

Getting it approved

Assess for WCAG 2.1 compliance

You can either self-assess or get a vendor to build or check for WCAG 2.1 compliance (refer to the notes on self-assessment further on).

We also recommend you test content with the end-users, including screen reader users, and have an independent subject matter expert or a specialist company to design or test for accessibility.

Seek expert advice. A few agencies do have staff with accessibility skills. Check with your digital or online services support team to see if they can help you.

Practical tools for self-assessment online

• Text alternatives decision tree - 4Syllables(opens in a new window)
• Alternative text for images - WebAIM(opens in a new window)
• Colour contrast checker - WebAIM(opens in a new window)
• Alternative text decision tree – W3(opens in a new window)

Technical development and service design

Your technical development is work you’ll most likely outsource to vendors outside your team. It’s important to make sure they understand the WCAG guidelines and how to apply them. When accessibility is incorporated from the start of a project, the benefit to the government and users is increased.

Be clear about the requirements

Specify in the contract that vendors must comply with WCAG 2.1 AA, provide evidence they’ve tested it, and it passes compliance. Check the warranty to see it covers fixing non-compliant work.

Build accessibility in

An effective way to ensure the final site is accessible is to build in the accessibility during the development and technical enhancements. Vendors need to make the back-end system and front-end, compliant before, during and after development.

Read more about service design(opens in a new window) and building accessible technology(opens in a new window).

Content development and accessibility basics

For you or your team, we strongly recommend:

• working to understand what accessible content is
• learn how to create it
• how to self-assess your own work for AA compliance.

For practical instructions on optimising accessibility, Victorian public servants can find resources and training in the Innovation Network.

To get you started, below are the basics for improving accessibility.

Accessible images

Your image must have alternative text (alt-text) if it conveys information or meaning. Alt-text is announced by screen readers and helps users understand the content and function of an image. Alt-text is also displayed by the browser when an image can't be loaded'.

Your alternative text (alt text) for images needs to be intelligible to text readers. And while it must be descriptive enough, it should remain concise. Be descriptive without mentioning every minute detail.

For example, don’t say ‘Photo of a tree’, instead, express what the message of the image is, ‘Maple tree provides welcome shade over a park bench and bus stop’. Good alternative text also helps search engines make better sense of the page.

Having the right level of contrast is also important. Learn about non-text contrast(opens in a new window).

Read more about accessible images(opens in a new window).

Accessible headings

Headings need to be identified (that is, as an H1 etc.) and structured correctly (that is, H1 then H2 – not H1 then H3.) This helps readers navigate content and provides important information on page structure.

Also, headings should only be used to label sections of content and not for visual styling.

Read more about accessible headings(opens in a new window).

Accessible links

Links need to describe where you’re taking the user. Make sure they make sense when read in isolation – don’t use ‘click here’ and ‘read more’. This applies to in-text and standalone links.

Tip: Don’t write 'For the WCAG guidelines click here.'

Do write: 'For more information, read the WCAG guidelines.'

Read more about accessible links(opens in a new window).

Accessible colours and the importance of contrast

Colours for graphics or text need to be in the recommended colour palette (refer to apply Brand Victoria - digital guide for the full list). There must be enough contrast between colour of the text and the colour of the background. Online tools, such as WebAIM’s colour contrast checker(opens in a new window) and W3’s Use of Colour(opens in a new window), allow you to easily check the accessibility of colour combinations.

DELWPs Communicating data with colour(opens in a new window) gives excellent guidance on designing accessible content for people with colour-blindness.

Colour and type accessibility

Colour combinations between type and background should be chosen carefully to ensure they are accessible. Both the primary and secondary Brand Victoria colour palettes have been tested against WCAG AA and WCAG AAA. The results are noted in the below document:

Accessible tables

Tables need extra markup. This means, for example, using tags like the table header (<th>), caption (<caption>), and table data (<td>) tags. Refer to Webaim's techniques for building accessible tables(opens in a new window).

This online accessible table builder(opens in a new window) allows you to build a table quickly without knowing HTML.

Assess for accessibility

You can self-assess your accessibility with these online tools listed by WCAG(opens in a new window) on its website. These will either mark what isn’t compliant or build a report.

Where possible, outsource accessibility testing to an independent vendor — their review will be more comprehensive.

Avoid using documents

Some types of content cannot be made fully compliant and are less user-friendly in general. It is best to try to avoid using PDFs, or Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel documents online. These file types are not mobile-friendly, as they take longer to download than HTML, and cannot be made responsive.

All documents must have a web page equivalent

To ensure you’re compliant, always start developing content with a webpage in mind. Only use a document as a secondary source of information that’s already on your webpage. Exceptions here are documents being provided for printing, like posters.

Word documents and Portable Document Formats (PDFs)

You should be creating a digital-first document and using any budget for web-friendly videos and infographics. If you are using a designer or self-publishing a Word document or PDF use our designer guidelines for accessible Word docs, PDFs and Indesign files.

If you don’t have a source document for a PDF, there are steps you can take to improve a PDFs accessibility.

Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel files

Making PowerPoint and Excel and email documents accessible is very difficult. It’s best left to outside vendors. At a minimum, you will need to provide an HTML cover page with your document’s purpose, message, and key findings.

Video and other multimedia

Provide a text equivalent

A transcript is an alternative text version of audio material. Always provide a script or transcript for all audio and video files.

Captioning is the text version of speech and other sound that can be provided on the video. Don’t rely on auto-captioning as this can be inaccurate.

Accessible maps

W3’s article on accessible maps(opens in a new window) will help you to understand and provide accessible equivalents for maps.

Complying with internal ICT policy and procedures

Your agency should already be embedding web accessibility (WCAG 2.1 conformance(opens in a new window)) into your IT and communication policies and practices. This covers:

• IT infrastructure
• online publishing procedures
• training and education
• procurement
• ongoing web accessibility action plans
• executive reporting
• all internal documents

Your agency is encouraged to develop, maintain, and provide:

• adequate resources to effectively deliver web accessibility
• publishing procedures that incorporate web accessibility quality control and risk management
• IT policy detailing scheduled web accessibility audits
• ongoing action plans, managing possible instances of inaccessibility
• education and awareness programs, providing staff with the necessary skills to deliver accessibility
• regular reporting to your executive.

Include agency intranets, third-party (external) sites and social media in your ICT policies.

Updating your procurement processes

Agencies should update their ICT procurement processes, especially those relating to websites and web-based service delivery, to include specific web accessibility criteria. Updating your procurement processes will help your agency achieve value for money by reducing the need for re-work or customisation to meet the mandatory accessibility standards. The federal Department of Finance website has more advice and information.

Checklist: best practice

• Write WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance into any requests for quotes and requirements.
• Get new websites or applications independently tested for accessibility.
• Apply accessibility standards to internal digital assets.
• Always use documents as secondary to web pages.
• Don’t use PDFs unless it’s specifically for printing (like posters)
• Provide a transcript and closed captions for audio or visual content.

Accessibility organisations and resources

Here are some contact details for organisations that can provide services and information to assist you to provide accessible communications.