Victorian Government Accessibility Toolkit - Version 2 June 2007

Prepared for the Department of Planning and Community Development, Citizen Access and Transformation Division, Victoria Online, Version 2.0, June 2007

Copyright State Government of Victoria , 2007

The Accessibility Toolkit is subject to copyright. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 you must not reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means the Accessibility Toolkit without prior written permission of the State Government of Victoria.

The toolkit has now been updated to Version 3 which includes how to comply with WCAG 1.0 Level AA requirements and also new sections have been added on web 2.0 type technologies. The new version is available in pdf and word formats. An html version of the toolkit is currently under development.

Section One : Introduction to the Accessibility toolkit

The Victorian Government Accessibility Toolkit

The Victorian Government's Accessibility Standard requires that:

• All websites must be Level A compliant (W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 1.0)
• Where audience needs are specific, websites should become Level AA or AAA as appropriate

This toolkit shows departments and agencies how to conform to this standard and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 1.0. The toolkit is designed for Victorian Government business managers and web site owners to enable them to effectively present the business case for accessibility and manage the processes involved.

What about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 2.0?

At the release of this toolkit the second version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines was undergoing a second Last Call. It is unlikely that WCAG2 will be released as a W3C Recommendation prior to late 2007. Even once WCAG2 is released it may be some time before it is endorsed by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and supercedes WCAG 1.0 in Australia .

In the event that HREOC does endorse WCAG2 we believe that this toolkit will still prove to be highly relevant. Although some sections of this toolkit refer exclusively to WCAG 1.0, in this first revision of the toolkit we focus on concrete examples and recommendations that exist irrelevant to the particular set of guidelines that Australia endeavours to follow.

About the author

Gian Sampson-Wild has worked in the accessibility industry since 1998 when she was the accessibility specialist on the first Australian Level AAA web site, Disability Information Victoria. More recently Gian Sampson-Wild worked as the accessibility specialist for Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, conducting audits of the site and training Commonwealth Games staff including suppliers such as Microsoft and Ticketmaster7. Gian wrote the original Victorian Government Accessibility Toolkit.

Contents of the Toolkit

Section One: Introduction

Section Two: Accessibility basics (business case)

This section covers some reasons why accessibility is important, including:

• What is accessibility?
• Why is accessibility important?
• Accessibility policy and guidelines
• Common accessibility myths
• Examples of accessible sites

This section is relevant if you are new to accessibility and want to learn about the importance of accessibility and the state and federal requirements around it.

Section Three: How to make a web site accessible

This section covers:

• Building an accessible site
• Making an existing site accessible
• Maintaining an accessible site
• Incorporating accessibility into tenders
• Checklists for building, fixing (site evaluation and implementation) and maintaining web site accessibility compliance
• Victorian Government case studies by Victoria Online, youthcentral and the Department of Education.

This section is relevant if you want information on the process of implementing accessibility requirements and are not sure where accessibility fits within the web development lifecycle.

Section Four: Understanding the W3C Accessibility Level A checkpoints

This section covers:

• All Level A checkpoints
• Non-Level A essential checkpoints (Checkpoints: 3.5, 10.1, 10.2, 12.4 and 13.1)

This section describes checkpoints in detail, including examples and information on how to test. This section is relevant if you are implementing the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Section Five: Quick and easy fixes

This section covers:

• Providing contact details
• Providing access to important pages

This section is relevant if you do not have the time or resources to fix your non-compliant site. There are some quick and easy fixes that you can do that will quickly enable people to access some of the essential areas of your site.

Section Six: Top issues

This section covers:

• Making images, image maps, maps and graphs accessible
• Making tables accessible
• PDFs and accessibility
• Making a PDF accessible
• Creating accessible forms
• JavaScript
• Making splash pages accessible
• Creating valid HTML pages
• Creating valid CSS
• Page source order
• Page structure
• Ensuring sufficient colour contrast
• Creating sites accessible to people with cognitive disabilities
• Conducting Operating System and Browser testing
• Additional accessibility features

This section is relevant if you are building or fixing a site with any of the features listed above. Due to the age of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines there are some checkpoints that are no longer relevant or that should only be implemented in a certain way.

Section Seven: Accessibility evaluation tools

This section covers:

• Page by page accessibility evaluation tools
• Specific accessibility evaluation tools
• Entire site accessibility evaluation tools
• AccVerify
• Cynthia Says
• FireFox Web Developer Toolbar
• The WAVE
• Web Accessibility Toolbar

This section is relevant if you are testing a site for accessibility compliance. Each accessibility tool has its own strengths and weaknesses and this section details these as well as instructions on how to use the tool and examples of how the tool illustrates accessibility violations.

Section Eight: Accessibility resources

A list of common accessibility resources.

For further information please contact:

eServices Unit,
Information Victoria,
Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development,
State Government of Victoria ,
Melbourne , Victoria , 3001

 Email: administration@egov.vic.gov.au

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