All of these requirements stem from the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, a landmark piece of access legislation which was passed in 2010. It requires that TV programs which have been broadcast with captions must also be captioned when made available online, but the FCC has previously stated that this applies only to “full-length programming” and not short clips.
Led by Australian Greens disability issues spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert, the app creates a direct line between people with disability and the people in parliament who can help improve physical access policy. When a user submits an access issue, an email is sent to Senator Siewert, who will then compile a report for other disability policy makers.
The app, available in iPhone, iPad and Android versions, was tested by our digital media team, with pleasing results. Both the versions are accessible to people using their devices with assistive technology.
Audio description is the descriptive narration of a TV program or other media, making them accessible for the blind and vision impaired. It was successfully trailed on ABC1 between August and November last year, with 14 hours of programs broadcast with audio description each week for 13 weeks. After its completion, the then Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, said, “It’s clear that audio description is a service that is strongly desired by the vision impaired community and the trial was embraced with real enthusiasm by participants.”
WCAG 2.0 is an internationally used set of criteria aimed at helping web professionals create content which is usable for everyone regardless of disability. WCAG 2.0 is being implemented by Australian federal and state and territory governments under the National Transition Strategy.
