Victoria Online’s experience in making the state government portal accessible

Cheryl Hardy and Peter SculleyVictoria Online

OZeWAI - 8 December 2005

Victoria Online – What is it?• Victoria Online is a portal website

aimed at providing discovery of Victorian State, Local and Australian Government Information and Services.

• Dynamic delivery• Top Level domain for Victoria:

www.vic.gov.au • Launched September 2003

Before Go Live – Accessibility Audit – Sept 2003

What was audited?• Home Page• Representative 2nd and 3rd level pages• Search screen and associated results pages• Feedback pages

Accessibility Audit Sept 2003 - Findings

• Priority 1 issues– Images with missing or incorrect text alternatives– CSS and browser compatibility– Use of unclear language– Frames without title information (help pages not

used)– Non-functioning content present when Javascript

unsupported (weather function not working)

Accessibility Audit Sept 2003 - Findings

• Priority 2 Issues– Colour contrast problems associated with text content– HTML validation errors– Use of absolute units in setting content sizes– Page content not sufficiently structured– New windows opening without the user being informed (help

pages not used)– Lack of alternative navigation scheme– Text labels for form inputs not explicitly associated– Ambiguous/incorrect titles.– Javascript functionality used that is incompatible with assistive

software (weather function not working)– Ambiguous link texts (Next 10 results, PDF description)

Accessibility Audit Sept 2003 - Findings

• Priority 3 Issues– Illogical tab order in forms– Acronyms and abbreviations not marked up (search

results include harvest data – inherit bad titles)– Illogical tab order through form input elements– No bypass functionality – no skip links

• General issues– Degraded user interface at lower screen resolutions

Go live – End Sept 2003

• Time constraints to launch meant compromises in addressing accessibility issues

• The site complied with most Priority 1 and many Priority 2 checkpoints.

• At Go Live we claimed AA with exceptions– Checkpoint 6.1 for version 4.7 and earlier of the Netscape

browser (Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets)

– Checkpoint 14.1 - Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content. (used an arrow – with alt text ‘narrow results by topic’)

– Checkpoint 3.2 - Create documents that validate to published formal grammars ([], space character caused validation errors)

Lessons learned in 2003

• Accessibility should have been included at the start of the site’s design/development – not at the end of it.

• When engaging a developer even if you ensure the contract requires delivery of an accessibility compliant system often developers do not have the skill.

• Best to engage an accessibility expert at the design point and have them fully engaged in the process going forward.

• Best if developer has in-house accessibility expertise.• A final audit prior to “Go Live” is still beneficial.

Experience 2004/2005

• Since go live in September 2003 there have been various iterative changes to the site– 2 major builds– subtle design changes– Front and back end patches, and– content changes.

• This has resulted in some regression of the accessibility of the site.• Development partner’s lack of accessibility compliance skill

contributed to regression.• ‘Subtle design changes’ are hard to monitor from an accessibility

perspective.

Accessibility Audit Sept 2005

• In September 2005 – as part of delivery of a new build another audit was carried out to establish where we stood accessibility wise.

• Again there were Priority 1, 2 and 3 issues but no where near as many as before, however many more pages were audited than previously.

Accessibility Audit Sept 2005

What was audited?• Home Page• All top level Topics and 2nd level Topics pages• Search screen and associated results pages• Government Contacts• Latest pages• Feedback page• Ancillary pages: About, Privacy, Copyright, Terms,

FAQ, Search Tips

Accessibility Audit Sept 2005 - FindingsOverall conformance with

Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints was very good, except ……

• Priority 1– Clarity of content

(fixed)– Use with Javascript

disabled browsers (to be fixed)

Accessibility Audit Sept 2005 - Findings

• Priority 2– HTML validation errors

(assessing fix)– Headings not marked up

(new - regression)– Ambiguous link text (News

items)– Inadequate metadata –

some pages (YourAmigo index - new regression – no longer occurring)

Accessibility Audit Sept 2005 - Findings

• Priority 3 Issues– Provision of skip links

• General Advice– Images missing height/width attributes (new)

Issues repeated Sept 2003 / Sept 2005

Sept 2003 Sept 2005

Use of unclear language Clarity of content

Use with Javascript disabled browsers

Use with Javascript disabled browsers (different problem)

HTML validation errors HTML validation errors

Ambiguous link texts Ambiguous link texts (different problem)

Skip links missing Skip links missing

Some of the issues were the same but the examples found were different from audit to audit.

Lessons Learned 2005

• Auditing bodies and tools are becoming more sophisticated as time goes on

• Accessibility is a moving feast• You can engage an accessibility expert to work with

developers but you can still end up with issues.• Content authors need to be aware of accessibility

– They need to know how to create accessible tables, alt tags for images, accessible pdfs etc.

• You need a style guide for layout and content generation

Lessons Learned 2005

• You need to continually perform automated and manual checks on the content you create

• You need to continually check any design changes to the site

• Creating an accessible site can limit your creativity – although this is not necessarily the case

• Content management systems can produce html code which does not conform to the specification and will never validate.

Lessons Learned 2005

• Content management systems can also produce parameter based URLs with some characters which will never validate – eg., [ ]

• Some CMS generated URLs produce the non spiderable “black hole” which prevents automated accessibility testing tools from successfully spidering your site and producing a complete report.

• The ongoing cost of engaging an accessibility expert can get expensive.

Lessons Learned 2005

• We are now going to train our own staff to be more knowledgeable in the field than they have been previously.– Their role will be to continually check for accessibility

compliance• Introduce a process for accessible content publishing – in

particular, to the static parts of the site – ie content versus dynamic search/browse results

• Introduce a process for managing and preventing regression of accessibility during major and minor builds/changes.

• Your accessibility statement should not misrepresent the accessibility of your site and it should be reviewed and updated regularly.

Victoria Online is the State Government entry point.

We have a legal and moral responsibility to provide an accessible site for Victorian citizens.

We are continually trying to do this.

Thankyou

Contact:

• Cheryl Hardy• Ph: 9655 1035• cheryl.hardy@mmv.vic.gov.au

• Peter Sculley• Ph: 9655 1037• peter.sculley@mmv.vic.gov.au