Award winners fail the website accessibility test

One of the most important aspects of public website design is to ensure that online information and services are accessible by all people, including those with disabilities. In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act (1992), for instance, requires that all websites that receive federal funding be accessible to users with a disability.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is a business group within the Department of Finance and Administration, responsible for:

"working to make Australia a leader in the productive application of information and communications technologies to government administration, information and services."

If you can get your head around the weasel words, AGIMO apparently achieve this by largely working with other Australian Government Agencies to "maintain and develop Australia's position as a world leader" in the use of information and communication technology through their strategies, standards and technical architecture.

One of AGIMO's initiatives is the annual e-Award which is meant to showcase and reward innovative use of internet technologies by all levels of government agencies, although they put a much better spin on it than I could ever hope to:

"The aim of the Excellence in e-Government Award (e-Award) is to inspire Australian government agencies to excel and innovate. The e-Award recognises the most outstanding, successful project of an Australian government agency, from federal, state/territory and local governments, in their delivery of e-government services to business, citizens and the community."

Looking at the websites of this year's winner and the other ten finalists, reveals that they have much more in common they you would think. You see folks, none of them actually pass the website accessibility test. Yes, that's right, none. Website accessibility is a standard set by the W3C, who, amongst the vast volumes of technical documentation, also provide a validation service to encourage designers to make accessible websites. Putting the "best eleven" to the test, reveals the sad truth:

  1. Road Ready fails with 40 errors.
  2. Green Light fails with 11 errors.
  3. business.gov.au fails with 40 errors.
  4. METeOR fails with 21 errors.
  5. Centrelink fails with 11 errors.
  6. Working with children fails with 53 errors.
  7. Business Victoria fails with 60 errors.
  8. Directions Plus fails with 20 errors.
  9. Native TitleVision fails with 83 errors.
  10. eDA fails with 18 errors.
  11. Export Consent fails with 23 errors.

While AGIMO's theoretical benchmark may be quite high, it's obvious they set pretty low standards when it comes to the actual technical implementation. And you know what's probably the most embarrassing thing about all of this?

The Department of Finance and Administration's very own accessibility page fails with 46 errors, and is therefore inaccessible.

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About the author

Ivan's mugshotI'm Ivan Lutrov and I'm the owner of Lutrov Interactive. I have 25 years of experience producing interactive work and I create cost effective business websites that are simple, engaging and easy to use. I preach what I practice, and I say what I really think, even if it's sometimes not what you expect to hear. Subscribe to the Lutrov Interactive feed via RSS and follow me on Twitter.