CEO of Media Access Australia, Alex Varley said, “Media Access Australia’s core business is about accessibility. We are out there talking to the community, to business and government about the need for accessible websites and our new site shows it can be achieved. Many people won’t see the accessibility features and that is the point. They are there for the people that need them and you don’t need to put a big label highlighting an accessibility feature, it is part and parcel of standard website design which includes everybody.”
Built by an experienced developer of accessible websites, OPC IT, and designed by Doppio Design, the site uses Drupal content management system. Accessibility was a key focus of the website’s design, development and testing.
Media Access Australia’s New Media Manager, Sarah Pulis commented, “We didn't compromise any of the website's functionality to meet the 'AA' guidelines. A common myth is that an accessible website must be a boring website, a myth that desperately needs debunking. For instance, we wanted a rotating feature on our homepage. We worked with both our designers and developers to ensure the feature met WCAG 2.0 ‘AA’ guidelines and also tested it with users.”
Pulis said that accessibility not only enhances a website for people with disabilities, but also improves its usability and search engine optimisation.
“Contrary to popular belief, building an accessible website doesn't only benefit people with disabilities. An accessible website makes it more usable for all, for instance, using proper heading structure. It can also have a positive impact on your SEO rankings, making your website easier to find through search engines such as Google,” Pulis said.
With the Federal Government’s recent announcement that all federal, state and territory websites will need to meet WCAG 2.0 ‘A’ standard by the end of 2012, and all federal sites to meet ‘AA’ standard by the end of 2014, the demand for accessible web development is increasing.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has also recently updated its Disability Discrimination Act: Web Advisory Notes, saying that all non-government websites should comply with WCAG 2.0 ‘AA’ conformance minimum by the end of 2013.
Pulis’s advice to IT Managers tasked with building an accessible site was, “Consider web accessibility from the very beginning, not mid-way through or even worse, try to retrospectively make a website accessible at the end of the development stage. Web accessibility comes in at all stages from design to development and testing. A number of web accessibility success criteria can be met through good coding practice. Also remember that building an accessible website is not just about the guidelines - user testing with people who have a disability and use different technologies is a must.”
“One of the challenges with using an open source CMS such as Drupal is that the modules you use to add functionality may not create accessible code. We were very fortunate that our developers had a very good understanding of web accessibility and of Drupal which made our lives much easier. What is always somewhat difficult are the guidelines that are a little more subjective that others. We deliberated long and hard on what the correct heading structure was for our homepage, and asked our testers to give us feedback as well to ensure we got as much feedback as possible,” said Pulis.
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