Accessibility

Our commitment

We are committed to delivering information in a format that can be accessed by everyone including people with disability.

On a daily basis our interactions include people with disability whether it is a client, a member of the community, a colleague or a stakeholder. By publishing accessible content we are removing barriers and creating an inclusive community that allows people with disability to make independent decisions.

People from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and seniors can also benefit from accessible content. Having information that is accessible increases our audience reach and ensures that our information is being understood by the reader.

Our Website Accessibility Policy and FACS Accessibility Standard provides guidance to put our web users at the centre of all that we do.

The Digital Service Standard

We adhere to, and suggest all agencies follow, the Australian Government’s Digital Service Standard. This standard came into effect in 2016 and outlines broad usability and accessibility principles for websites and digital services developed at a national level.

At times, we are required to publish documents and publications received from third parties. These third party documents may not adhere to the Digital Service Standard.

Accessible web design

The FACS website has been developed to ensure content is available to the widest possible audience, including readers using assistive technology or accessibility features.

We acknowledge the diversity of communication methods, available technologies, and current abilities of web users in our community. In addition to the Digital Service Standard our work is informed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 at AA level.

We welcome any suggestions regarding the accessibility features of this site. If you would like to provide feedback, please email us at accessibility@facs.nsw.gov.au.

Tools we use to meet and continually monitor our WCAG 2.0 AA commitment

• Lighthouse is an open source auditing tool from Google for developers to test, benchmark, and identify improvements to performance and accessibility.
• Monsido continually scans our domain to find any possible issues that may hinder accessibility.
• JAWS is a computer screen reader program that allows blind and visually impaired users to read the screen either with a text-to-speech output or by a refreshable Braille display.
• WAVE is developed and made available as a free community service by WebAIM. Originally launched in 2001, WAVE has been used to evaluate the accessibility of millions of web pages.
• AChecker is a Web accessibility evaluation tool designed to help Web content developers and Web application developers ensure their Web content is accessible to everyone regardless of the technology they may be using, or their abilities or disabilities.
• Stark is a contrast checker plugin for Sketch (graphic design program) that calculates the colour contrast of two layers and evaluates it against the WCAG 2.0.
• Vision Australia's Colour Contrast Analyser is used to help determine the legibility of text on a web page or document, and the legibility of image based representations of text against WCAG 2.0 requirements.

Accessibility features

The FACS website features industry-standard techniques and best practices to provide the highest possible level of website accessibility for all users. These include:

• Structured headings and subheadings with clear relationships to content.
• Ability to navigate the website using only the following keys: Tab, Shift+Tab, Space, Enter, the left, right, up, and down arrow keys.
• Text size scaling is supported using standard browser controls
• Link text and phrases are carefully written to provide the correct level of context
• Information conveyed with colour is still identifiable for users with visual impairment
• All images on our website will contain textual alternative descriptions (where appropriate) for announcement within Assistive Technologies like screen readers.
• Tables have additional metadata for Assistive Technologies and Screen Readers in order to effectively communicate the structure of information
• Online form controls are designed to support users with limited dexterity and/or visual impairment.
• Documents on the website have been made available as accessible Portable Document Format (PDF) with tagging, where possible. Where this has not been possible, an alternative file format, such as a Rich Text Format (RTF) file or an HTML web page version has been provided.

Assistive technology

Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI ARIA)

ARIA landmarks and roles have been added to the HTML of this website to support easier navigation for assistive technologies (in particular screen readers) and better control of dynamic JavaScript features.

ARIA landmarks and roles are currently supported by the latest versions of:

• Chromevox (screen reader plugin for Chrome)
• JAWS® (Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer)
• NVDA (Internet Explorer or Firefox)
• VoiceOver (Safari on iOS)
• Orca (Linux screen reader)

The latest versions of browsers are recommended because of the level of accessibility support and online security provided.