[LINK] Cautionary Tale of Web Accessibility Not Heeded by Victorian Government

[Tom Worthington]

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C WAI) has a set of
"Cautionary Tales of Inaccessibility" to help promote good web design:
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/resources.html#casesnot>.

I was contacted about "A Cautionary Tale of Inaccessibility:
Sydney Olympics Website": <http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/socog-case-study>.

Regrettably the Victorian Government Country Fire Authority Web Site may
be added to this list: <http://cfa.vic.gov.au/>.

An automated test indicates that the CFA home page failed a W3C WAI
Version 1 test, with 1 error at level 1, 36 at level 2, and 15 at level
3. The page also failed a W3C HTML Validation test, with 230 errors and
37 warnings. The page also failed the W3C mobileOK Checker test.

The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission identified deficiencies in
the online distribution of bushfire information by the Victorian
Government. Some media reports indicate that the CFA web site failed
yesterday:
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/16/2773833.htm?section=australia>.

Any ICT professional involved with bushfire web sites must be aware that
they have ethical as well as legal obligations to ensure that the
systems they provide are operating correctly. Arguing that the web site
is not essential and that citizens can get information from other 
sources is not a valid defence, nor is arguing that they do not
have sufficient resources, nor that they did not have the authority, or
were ordered not to fix flaws in the system. Professionals are
required to act in the public interest, regardless:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/webethics.shtml>.

The design of web sites for emergency use, including bushfires, is not a 
new field and there are some established approaches. I outlined some of 
these, along with methods of using the web for investigations, for the 
staff of the Victorian bushfire inquiry:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/02/ict-at-victorian-february-2009-bushfire.html>.

More in my Blog at: 
http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/12/cautionary-tales-of-inaccessibility-not.html>


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274