'The new accessibility panic': remaining challenges to the achievement of Australia's national transition strategy

Abstract

The Australian Government made a commitment in 2010 to ensure that all Federal, State and Territory websites would be accessible and meet World Wide Web (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) Level AA conformance [1] through its National Transition Strategy (NTS) by the end of 2014 [2]. However, as Wood and Hollier [3] foreshadowed in 2013, the recently released NTS 2012 Progress Report confirms that the targets for the first stage of the NTS implementation plan (Level A conformance by the end of 2012) proved unrealistic [4]. Moreover, the Chief Information Officer with the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), Glen Archer, acknowledges it is unlikely that the targets set for the final stage of the implementation plan (Level AA conformance) will be met by the end of 2014 [5]. This paper reports the findings from content analysis of postings to AGIMO blogs, and our reflections on the discussions of students enrolled in an online Professional Certificate in Web Accessibility Compliance course, to identify key factors that have contributed to the challenges experienced by government departments in achieving NTS targets. The final section of the paper explores the implications and proposes strategies that could assist in addressing the identified barriers.