This is part of the ACT Government Website Development and Management Standard [http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/Documents/website_std.pdf]. The Standard was adopted in August 2004, but is substantially the same as previous one from 2001.
The relevant section is 13.5 Accessibility
ACT Government websites must support all users irrespective of their physical limitations (eg vision, hearing, mobility, literacy, or cognitive impairment), environmental limitations (eg noise), and / or technical limitations (eg slow modems, older browser versions, low resolution displays, and monochrome monitors).
Implementation Notes, which provide information on current Best Practice in Accessibility together with examples, can be found on the ACTIM site at http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/actim/ .
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, are aimed at making websites accessible to all users – particularly those with a disability. ACT Government websites must satisfy all Priority 1 checkpoints and where possible Priority 2 and Priority 3 checkpoints.
References:
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
• World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission: http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/standards/www_3/www_3.html
There are certain procedures to follow in ensuring that PDF documents can be properly accessed by users with visual impairment. Details can be found at http://access.adobe.com .
A format that is accessible to the visually impaired and users with a text-only browser or a slow Internet connection must be available. It should be noted that PDF documents are generally not suitable for people who rely on screen readers. If a document is supplied in PDF format, a version in HTML or RTF format must also be available on the site, with a link adjacent to that for the PDF version.
If a document is published on a website and it is impossible to provide an “accessible” version of the document (an example would be a large scale map), the site must contain directions on how users may access the document offline (eg a location where it may be accessed or explained).
Consider providing access to non-English versions of information and services based upon demand and the ethnicity of the client base. Such access may consist of a link to a translating service.
Some translation tools are available that automatically convert material into various languages. Although these tools are capable of producing good results, they should not be relied on in situations where a high degree of accuracy is required.
A complaint was received in 2003 from a member of the ACT community about our use of PDF, with respect to users with visual impairment. We explained the benefits of PDF – it can't be tampered with, and it controls the appearance of the resource and won't vary between platforms.
We also explained the general accessibility issues with PDFs, but pointed out:
Adobe offers an online facility to convert PDF to HTML, and
There's a built-in accessibility feature (“Read Out Loud”) in Acrobat Reader 6, although if you don't have it this software may take some time to download.
It seemed to have been a persuasive answer, as we heard no more of it.
But it did result in the requirement in the new Standard that “Make PDF documents as accessible as possible”.
There are around 100 websites in the ACT Government, and most of these are managed by junior staff, with very little support. & So, they need a lot of help and guidance from central policy areas like mine, and consequently we try to make their job as simple as we can.
Many of them have inherited sites that have been developed over the years with little attention being paid to compliance with guidelines. This means that they have a big task in retrospectively checking their PDFs for accessibility and then adjusting them if possible.
We wanted to find out as much as possible about PDF s and accessibility, so we started experimenting with creating documents and then testing them. The software used was Adobe Acrobat Standard 6.0 and the documents were created from Microsoft Word 2000.
The first thing that we noticed was that it was difficult to detect in the resulting PDFs whether they had ALT text associated with images in the PDF. In one test, a three-page document had ALT text for all images, but when the cursor was moved over the images, the ALT text was only displayed for images on the first page. (Using the “Read Out Loud” feature, all of the ALT text was spoken)
The result of this would be that a Web manager checking a PDF with valid ALT text for all images may be led to believe that it was not accessible, and would have to recreate it.
We were advised by Adobe that they didn't know anything about this (and they thanked us for reporting it). They did advise us to check this with Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0; we did, with the same result.
We then created another test file (using Microsoft Word) with some images having ALT text and some that didn't. We then ran this through the Accessibility test in Acrobat Professional 6.0, but it was given the “all clear”. Strangely, running such a test on other PDFs without ALT text for their images produced an error report.
We have been advised that problems like this may be fixed in the new version 7 of Adobe Acrobat. We look forward to testing it.
The ACT Government's Website Development and Management Standard tries to address all types of accessibility issues. One of the requirements is that text files be published in RTF format rather than Word. We acknowledge that this is not a perfect solution, as RTF files – especially those with images – are much larger than those in Word, but there are problems with Word as our primary format.
We're still trying to work out the best way of balancing the various formats.
I'd say that it is not good: even the best sites (including the ACT Government Entry Point) are not fully compliant. The reasons for this include:
• Web managers being poorly trained and not receiving much support, and
• Senior managers not being aware of general website standards and especially Accessibility
So, what are we doing about this:
• Standards . We've incorporated stronger Accessibility requirements into our Website Standard.
• Implementation notes . We're publishing notes to advise Web managers on what practical steps they need to take to comply with the standards.
• Promotion . When a new domain name is approved, we send an information pack to the manager of the business unit, pointing out the appropriate standards that they'll have to take note of in building their site.
• Content Management Systems . We have established a standard specification for CMS to be used in government agencies, and this specification requires certain facilities, such as requiring ALT text to be input for all images.
• Accessibility testing . We've established a panel period contract that makes it easier for our agencies to engage consultants to help with testing and to provide ad hoc advice on Accessibility issues.
• Checking compliance . ACTIM has a program of checking compliance with out standards, using automated tools and personal inspection.
• Publication of results of audits . We're still trying to work out the best way to do this. We don't want to offend senior managers by naming and shaming, so we'll probably concentrate on publishing a list of best performers.