‘Accessibility’ — the new legislation and why it’s the right thing to do
Written by Dave Ferguson
Accessibility and the concept of inclusive design has been around for a while but now it’s a must. This means that every public sector organisation must ensure their websites are accessible and meet certain standards and need to be designed to support all users with disabilities.
The new guidelines are known but for websites that have evolved over time, this means massive change and challenges.
We know it’s the right thing to do making the website and services more accessible to all.
I guess we are lucky that our website is an existing one, it gives us more time than if we were creating or had just created a new one.
Although we are just unpicking what this means to us in North East Lincolnshire, it is clear that we need a plan and a framework to deliver the changes needed.
We think there are a number of parts to the work:
· Technical platform changes that can resolve many issues by changing the template that supports all pages
· Technical changes at a page level
· Content and supporting transcripts for sound, video, pictures, forms, charts and tables
· Ensuring compatibility with all devices and making all content responsive
As we have a strong author model which is centrally based we have great advantages over other councils who operate a distributed author model across all services. This helps us be more consistent with design and user experience meeting the principle of operability.
But with so many changes to make, capacity is a premium so we need to be smart and tackle the work on the basis of doing the things that make the greatest impact, be clear in our accessibility statement about where we are compliant and where we are not and what our plan is to deal with it.
There are some big challenges:
· 5,000 plus PDF documents that need to be edited to make them accessible or the content delivered through other means.
· Video transcripts for any embedded video
· Similar for audio recordings
· Making pictures and infographic accessible
· Changing the culture of the organisation from making things look pretty to meeting the needs of users
· Third party software and content that we have procured and working with the providers to ensure accessibility
Whilst we are feeling trepidation about what needs to be done, we think we are in a good position for our North East Lincolnshire Council website. We feel we have the skills, the capability and framework in place to meet the challenge.
If you want to find out more, follow us on Twitter @SDNEL1.
