 Award winners fail the website accessibility test
Friday, 23 June 2006
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:
- Road Ready fails with 40 errors.
- Green Light fails with 11 errors.
- business.gov.au fails with 40 errors.
- METeOR fails with 21 errors.
- Centrelink fails with 11 errors.
- Working with children fails with 53 errors.
- Business Victoria fails with 60 errors.
- Directions Plus fails with 20 errors.
- Native TitleVision fails with 83 errors.
- eDA fails with 18 errors.
- 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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I think we came to the same conclusions, even used a similar frmat to report the pathetic management at AGIMO.
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/AustWeb.html#agmio
A review of the AGIMO award winner roadready http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Publishing/AustWeb.html#roadready
I emaild AGIMO about errors in their pages. The wrote back, "We lead by example" arrogant mongrels bringing Australian website down. Who is the idiot at the top to blame? The AGIMO Minister of State Gary Nairn sticks his head in the sand, Ann Steward probably does not know any better.
Keep on the mongrels case. Good work
Tim
Thanks, Tim. At least you got a reply. They didn't even bother responding to me, perhaps your observations were worded more politely than mine? In any case, they should be ashamed of the poor quality of their work.
Ivan, Don't feel badly, they did reply in a way, through a different government department, Centrelink reassessed my share of my children in an unjust manner, I wrote about it and Centrelink made a defamation action threat, now withdrawn which cost them $5,000.
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/NoCourt/Docs/CSA.html#Defame
I think you worded it well Ivan, mildly even perhaps "weasel words", maybe arrogant egotistical lies I might say for their statements to me that they (AGIMO) "Lead by example". Are we in a fairytale and you and I alone can see the Emperor has no clothes.
Some organisations like Vision Australia are aware AGIMO failures, but they take a more conciliatory approach than the UK Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) who issue companies with non-compliance notices. I got a reply from Special Minister of State Gary Nairn as well saying he was very interested in IT issues. He was going to present the award himself, luckily for him, or possibly on good advice, he had the AGIMO Chief Information Officer present the awards.
If others will not say it on behalf of visually impaired Australians, then it is up to the few who notice to speak up. Good work with your webblog Ivan, you notice the same thing as me and even constructed a similar pre linked validation check of each site. If I had any money to pay you as an author, I would want you to work with you. I will reserve you a page and you can write your own HTML.
Keep the standards high and great work Ivan
Tim http://www.hereticpress.com