Research & policy

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Greens crowdsource map of physical access barriers

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A new app has been developed by the Australian Greens which gathers information on physical accessibility barriers from the public. The app allows people to identify access trouble spots, such as a building without ramps, or a traffic light without audible signals. The information collected by the app will be used by government to inform future policy.

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.


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Lack of audio description a breach of human rights

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Blind Citizens Australia (BCA) yesterday lodged 21 disability discrimination complaints against the Federal Government and the ABC for failing to provide an audio description service on television.

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.”


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WCAG 2.0 under fire in new research

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Controversial research has been published damning the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 as system for achieving equal access to the web for disabled users.

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.

Digital media and technology: 

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Australia signs treaty to boost access to books

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People who are blind or vision impaired will have increased access to books and other print media after an international copyright treaty was signed. The treaty, signed by members of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Morocco last week, will allow signatories to make exceptions to copyright laws within their country so that accessible alternative copies such as Braille, large print or audio books can be created.

To access print media, blind and vision impaired people require such as large print or audio alternatives to be made. Copyright laws often restrict the production of accessible copies of published works (printed or otherwise) and sharing these across organisations overseas.


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