Use these resources to gain a better understanding of why accessibility is important, how to take an inclusive approach to content and how to test for accessibility.

Inclusive design

• - check your approach to content accessibility by learning about inclusive design.
  
• - a curated list of resources recommended by the Centre for Inclusive Design to further the conversation around inclusive content
• - an international community of inclusive designers, developers and advocates.
• UK Home Office Designing for Accessibility posters (PDF 519.83KB) - posters to print out and remind you how to make your content accessible for different access needs.

Testing accessibility

Colour contrast

• - download tool to check legibility and contrast.
• - colour contrast checker.
• - colour picker and checker.

Websites

• for Chrome shows ARIA errors and other accessibility errors.

Assistive technology

People with accessibility needs may use assistive technology to access content. Testing your content with these technologies is the most accurate way of making sure it's accessible.

Screen readers

• - free screen reader available for download (request IT support to install).

Device personalisation

Use these resources to help optimise your content in Microsoft Office, Google Docs, websites or any text publishing platform.

Web

• - comprehensive guide to web writing accessibility
•  - guide from the Australian Government Style Manual.

Microsoft Office

•  - step-by-step text instructions
•  - 7-part video tutorial
•  - step-by-step text instructions
•  - 5-part video tutorial
• - step-by-step text instructions
• - 3-part video tutorial
• - a free download that adds accessibility features to your Microsoft Office ribbon
  
•  for rich media.

Google docs

• .

4Syllables accessibility resources

• .

Use these resources to optimise PDFs for accessibility.

Adobe

• - how to create accessible PDFs
•  - how to optimise forms and documents for accessibility.

W3C

• - using the optical character recognition tool in Acrobat to turn a scanned document into actual text.

Use these resources to optimise data for accessibility.

• - what to look out for in Excel and how to optimise workbooks for accessibility
• - resources and tools to make maths accessible
• - suggestions for describing flow charts and tables.

Use these resources for making rich and multimedia content like audio and video accessible.

Images and graphics

• - a tool to help choose accessible colours and fonts.
• - a framework for making images and graphics accessible.
• - how to correctly use alternative text.
• Image guidelines on our website.
• - tips for using alternative text for rich media in Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).

Video

• Video guidelines on our website
• Creating accessible videos on our website
• - free tool for video captioning, subtitles and translation
• - YouTube automatic captions editor
• - captioning software for PC/Mac desktop.
• - how to create videos accessibly.

Within the department

Outside the department

Some companies offer content accessibility audits and can re-create content to comply with accessibility standards. This can be helpful if you have a lot of content to make accessible in a short period of time, however it won?t help build capacity and skills across your team.

Some trusted suppliers include:

• - offers accessible content creation, testing and remediation (web, video and documents), as well professional learning
• - offers website testing, training and document remediation
• - can provide a range of services including website testing and document remediation
• - offer website testing and document remediation.
• - offer an accessible document service, as well as auditing and testing.

Audit

If you haven't done a recent , evaluate your content and remove out-of-date web pages and documents. If it's not useful, current or popular, you may be able to unpublish or delete it. You should also review our checklist for accessible content to ensure your content meets the requirements.

Prioritise

Sort your remaining content by date to prioritise what needs to be made accessible first.

1. Any new web content or documents need to be accessible. No exceptions.
2. Prioritise legacy content created after 31 December 2014 based on:
   1. importance (legal or business requirement) - does it align with directorate/unit priorities or some other obligation to have the content?
   2. popularity - use analytics to find out page views/file downloads. If it's not being used, consider unpublishing or deleting the page/document.
3. Prioritise legacy content created before 31 December 2014 based on:
   1. importance
   2. popularity.

3. Plan

Create a timeline and assign the people responsible for making your content accessible within 6 to 12 months, depending on how much you have. Use this Google sheets to start planning.

1. Fill it out with your existing content (copy URLs from your content audit if you have done one).
2. Give scores based on importance and popularity and give a priority number.
3. Arrange in order of the priority column.
4. Assign a date in the next 6 months to make accessible.
5. Assign a person responsible.
6. Document the date completed.

4. Create with accessibility in mind

• Remember, a web page is best. Unless it really needs to be a Word doc or PDF for print or editing purposes, always make it a web page.
• Print these Designing for accessibility posters (PDF 519.83 KB) to remind you and your team how to create content accessibly for different needs.

5. Health checks

Do regular audits of your content to pick up any accessibility errors.