Accessibility

The Accessibility Standard (DOC, 68KB) describes the rules that must be followed to ensure that the content and functionality of Telstra's web presence is accessible by the widest possible number of people in the community, including those using assistive technologies such as screen readers (for example, Jaws for Windows). This standard applies to all sites, including web pages and dynamic web Applications, regardless of template version.

Web Accessibility is a subset of 'Universal Design'. Universal Design is the process of designing products so they are as usable to people with the widest range of abilities and constraints as is commercially practical. 'Abilities and constraints' refer as much too human disability as it does to machine device and platform limitations and opportunities.

Business Value

Telstra's Disability Action Plan outlines Telstra's commitment to review and improve the accessibility of the Telstra Web presence. The Disability Action Plan is intended to assist Telstra in recognising that people with a disability have the same fundamental rights as the rest of the community. Failure by Telstra to provide equal access to its websites for people with a disability may expose it to complaints under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

Market Importance

Four million people in Australia (18.5 per cent) reported having a disability (ABS 2009). The rate of disability increases steadily as people grow older, to approximately 40 per cent of those aged between 65 and 69. Around 1.5 million reported a profound or severe limitation in the core activities of communication, mobility and self-care. Types of disability, as they impact on people's capacity to use interactive computer technology, include:

• visual impairments: ranges from low vision to blindness. Issues include being able to see text or images, distinguish colours, and perform tasks such as moving a mouse, which require hand-eye coordination
• movement impairments: research has shown that at any given point in time approximately 1 million Australians are unable to use their computer mouse. Some people are also unable to type or use standard keyboards
• hearing impairments: range from partial hearing to full deafness. Issues include not being able to hear computer beeps and other auditory feedback, unable to hear sound files
• cognitive and language impairments: conditions include dyslexia, difficulties remembering, solving problems or perceiving; comprehending and using language, solving problems, dealing with complex information.

Principles of Accessibility

All Telstra web interfaces, and any interfaces embedded into web interfaces, are required to be as accessible as practically possible. Attention to accessibility is organised around the following four principles:

1. Content must be perceivable
2. Interface components in the content must be operable
3. Content and controls must be understandable
4. Content should be robust enough to work with current and future user agents (including assistive technologies)

Ref: Introduction to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

These four principles lay the foundation necessary for anyone to access and use web interfaces. Note that these principles apply only to interface elements and content presented to a human reader. A structured database or metadata collection where the data is intended for use by another machine, and that requires no interface, lies outside the scope of these principles.

Products should be designed so they are accessible to a wide range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning difficulties, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech difficulties, and others. Following principles of accessibility will also make your Web content more usable to many other users, including older users. It will also enable people to access Web content using many different devices - including a wide variety of assistive technologies and mobile technologies.
Here are a few scenarios, by no means an exhaustive list of the variations and types of disabilities and needs:

• someone who cannot hear well will want a visual representation of information presented via sound
• someone who cannot see well will want to hear or feel (via Braille or tactile graphics) an equivalent of the visual information
• someone who does not have the strength to move quickly or easily will want to use as little movement as possible and have as much time as they need when operating Web interfaces
• someone who does not read well may want to hear the information read aloud.

An assistive technology is a technology that sits between the standard interface of a product and a user with special needs so that they can use the product interface effectively. Some examples are:

• screen readers provide an auditory interface for blind users to computer OS GUIs and web sites within browser UIs by reading text in a computerised voice, and allowing users to navigate around the interface using the keyboard, following the user focus with auditory feedback
• screen enlargers are used by people with low vision to magnify regions of a screen
• single switch devices are used by people with dexterity impairments to navigate and use interfaces, perhaps with on-screen keyboards that allow them to select options using the single switch
• adapted keyboards are used by older people or people with dexterity impairments who find it difficult to use a standard keyboard
• braille devices such as refreshable Braille displays are used by blind people for reading, tactile feedback and to enable deaf blind users to read content if they cannot use a screen reader's speech output
• speech recognition technology is used by people with dexterity impairments who cannot use a keyboard or need to enhance their experience with using single switches. Speech technology can be used to control interfaces or to translate speech directly into text.

Telstra is not responsible for making assistive technologies accessible themselves, nor for making sure that all assistive technologies work properly with basic Operating System functions. However, Telstra is responsible for ensuring our product interfaces can be used effectively by people who use such assistive technology.