It’s been a busy but productive year for OZeWAI with new a membership approach, multiple sub-committee projects and lots of conferences and events so we thought it would be good to share some highlights of 2023.
Memberships
This year OZeWAI moved to a membership tier approach with a variety of membership options. This membership structure has allowed OZeWAI to improve revenue to assist with sponsorship of advocacy work and events, progressing project initiatives and has allowed OZeWAI to better serve their professional and organisational members with benefits including the consultant directory.
Thank you to everyone who has become a member or supported OZeWAI.org this year and if you haven’t, please consider joining OZeWAI as a paid member so we can continue to provide services for our digital accessibility professional community.
Events and Notable Contributions
Throughout the year members had opportunities to attend and present at in-person partner conferences, online panels, workshops and contribute to OZeWAI projects. Highlight events included:
- Sponsorship of the Perth Web Accessibility Camp (PWAC) where OZeWAI facilitated a workshop and used the responses to develop a checklist of how to embed accessibility into a project lifecycle.
- Sponsorship of the AITCAP conference on the Gold Coast in April, where OZeWAI co-chairs Amanda Mace and Bri Norton presented a “Getting started with accessibility” workshop.
- Sponsorship of the Print Disability Round Table Conference in Sydney in May was sponsored by OZeWAI and a great networking event.
- The Web Directions Summit held in Sydney in October, where OZeWAI members shared their experience and provided accessibility technology demonstrations at the OZeWAI booth. Ricky Onsman shared summaries of the first day. Irith Williams and Bri Norton presented their Five Fundamentals of Inclusive Research based on their co-collaborated workshops.
Ask the Professionals
OZeWAI launched the “Ask the Professionals” online events where attendees had the opportunity to ask questions of accessibility specialists working across various industries, in accessibility consulting companies, private sector and government.
Dates and topics of these online events covered:
- 4 December – Experiences and opportunities of accessibility specialists in government.
- 2 November – Get Online Week. How OZeWAI people with disability use assistive technologies and adaptive strategies.
- 5 October – Panel of OZeWAI partners sharing how we will be working together on events and projects.
- 20 September – Accessibility professionals within consulting organisations.
- 10 August – Accessibility professional members of OZeWAI
There have been some great insights over the year from our panelists, some key takeaways which resonated included:
I raised a defect about the fact that there was a button label that was, you know, repeating the word “button” [for a screen reader] or something like that. And this developer came back ‘Oh that’s a very minor issue, isn’t it?’ And I said, ‘Well, imagine if the button had the words ‘button’ written twice on the on the screen, it’d be fixed pretty quickly, wouldn’t it?’- Adam Cooper
If you ask an AI to make something accessible, it’ll stick ARIA labels on everything. So and that itself is an indication of how engrained, the use of ARIA has been as a substitute for best practice markup. – Ricky Onsman
Sometimes passion can be overwhelming, and it can overwhelm other people. Accessibility is a big topic, it’s a large umbrella, and it can be overwhelming, if you’re talking to someone who doesn’t understand it. Especially if you’re really passionate. So you actually have to tone it down a bit and be like, here’s an easy win, here’s some low hanging fruit that we can do. – Amanda Mace
You can view all past “Ask the Professionals” sessions on the online events page. Make sure to keep an eye out for new topics in 2024 and register for our January event on the topic of Accessibility Specialists in Industry.
Partnerships
This year OZeWAI established partnerships with:
More partnerships are planned for 2024. If you are interested in discussing a partnership with OZeWAI please contact us.
Accessible ICT Procurement project work
OZeWAI’s ICT Procurement Sub-committee has been working to improve overall accessibility of products and services by developing content to improve procurement processes for organisations, whether they currently have Accessibility SMEs or not.
- OZeWAI contributed to the letter of support for the Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training (ADCET) and on the development of guidance for the higher education sector. The final work was published on the CAUDIT website.
- OZeWAI continues to work with the Australian Network on Disability’s procurement task force and in 2023 were also invited to attend the AND Conference and Awards.
- OZeWAI members also participated in panels for TAFE Director Australia (TFA), The Higher Education Technology Agenda (THETA) and ACCAN, to share procurement news and updates.
Read more about OZeWAI’s Accessible ICT Procurement updates.
Apprenticeships
Currently there is a skills shortage within Australia in both the IT sector and specifically in Digital Accessibility. The OZeWAI Apprenticeship sub-committee is working on proposals to bring Digital Accessibility Specialist Apprenticeships to Australia to give a dedicated pathway to individuals joining the industry and create apprentices with measurable skills.
OZeWAI have been in discussions with organisations in both the US and UK who have implemented similar apprenticeship programs and OZeWAI have now identified some organisations keen to hire apprentices in the field. OZeWAI are currently working to develop role descriptions and curriculums for the apprenticeship program and expect much more movement on this program in the new year.
Get Involved
Remember if you want to get involved in any of the OZeWAI initiatives read more about the membership tiers and join as a member today.