The Digital Public Service (DPS) branch is testing a tool to help government organisations improve the accessibility of their websites.
Government websites — checking their accessibility
The Web Accessibility Standard sets accessibility requirements for government websites in New Zealand.
Web Accessibility Standard 1.1
The DPS branch is supporting government organisations to meet this standard and create websites that can be used by disabled people. The DPS branch’s Centralised Web Accessibility Checker (CWAC) aims to help with this work.
CWAC helps government organisations fix accessibility issues
CWAC is a tool that automatically scans large numbers of websites for accessibility issues. This gives the DPS branch a view of the overall accessibility of government websites. CWAC could also give government organisations a list of issues to fix, without needing to pay for third-party testing.
Pilot programme — testing stage
Many government organisations have signed up for CWAC’s pilot. The DPS branch’s Web Standards team will be testing and developing the tool with them until early .
Results from testing
The Web Standards team will carry out an analysis of the lessons learned from the pilot and any improvements to CWAC.
Their goal is to see how CWAC could be used to improve government websites on an ongoing basis.
More information
Contact the Web Standards team for information about CWAC and its testing.
Email: web.standards@dia.govt.nz
Published
12 May 2023
