Accessibility and the National Transition Strategy to WCAG2.0

Web Accessibility has long been an issue in Local Government. Having moved beyond bricks and mortar accessibility; access ramps and the like, Local Government seems to have gotten stuck when it comes to web accessibility.

Lack of skill, lack of knowledge and fear of associated costs have often prevented accessibility initiatives from getting off the ground.

But things have to change.

The Australian Government Information Management Office, guided by the Online Communications Council have mandated that all government agencies in Australia must transition to the now adopted standard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2 (WCAG 2.0)

Via the Online Communications Council, where Local Government is represented by the  Australian Local Government Association, this Transition Strategy applies to us.

Hopefully, for many of you, this Transition, which has been bubbling away for quite sometime, is already on your radar, but for many of you, this adherence to the standard will be a new direction.

For Local-e, we are already building these standards into our new Joomla based CMS as far as practicable.

The Transition Strategy is available for download below, and I have commenced discussions with AGIMO and hopefully ALGA about how we're going to tackle this.

Do you think your council will be able to transition? What issues can you see for your council in the transition?