Posted by Dr Scott Hollier, Director and Co-founder of the Centre For Accessibility Australia
Last week it was a great privilege to provide a webinar to staff from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), supporting their upskilling processes around the new WCAG 2.1 standard.
The webinar included 11 staff across four states with a focus to support ICT professionals, internal accessibility specialists and content producers as to how the mobile-focused WCAG 2.1 could be integrated into their work processes.
The half-day webinar focused on why digital access for people with disability is important, how to interpret the legacy WCAG 2.0 success criteria in a mobile context, an overview of the new WCAG 2.1 success criteria to Level AA and the implications of future standards developments. The webinar also included two practical activities including providing participants with an opportunity to use a screen reader and how to test websites with an automated tool.
While many ATO staff were already actively working to make digital content accessible, the guidance provided in the webinar helped to highlight a more mobile-specific focus in preparation for the WCAG 2.1 rollout mentioned in a recent tweet by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA).
Thanks again to the staff at the ATO for the opportunity to provide the webinar – it’s wonderful to see so many people dedicated to the pursuit of digital access. If any other government department is interested in being upskilled in WCAG 2.1, please get in touch.
