Disability and accessibility

Delivering services that work for everyone

About this course

This half-day course looks at different ways of thinking about, and working with, disability and accessibility.

You will learn about:

The barriers that people with disabilities face
Some ways to remove those barriers

This course covers:

Disability in Australia
Accessibility standards (including WCAG and the Digital Service standard)
Inclusion and inclusive design

Who this course is for

This course will benefit people who:

Are building a new online service
Are improving an existing online service
Need to assess design work that is being delivered by consultants
Want to build design capacity in their team

For public servants

This course was designed with the needs of the Australian public service in mind. It is informed by the the APSC Public Service Disability Employment Strategy 2020-25, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 the DTA Digital Service Standard, the APS learning design standards for digital, and the SFIA digital skills and competency framework.

How this course is taught

This course can be taught either online or in person. Both options are designed for accessibility.

This course uses a combination of lecture content, small group discussions, real-world examples, and collaboration tools such as collaboration boards and polls.

Ask about this course

What you'll learn

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Describe the medical model of disability
Describe the level of disability in Australia
Explain why reported levels of disability differ from actual levels of disability
Describe the social model of disability
Define ‘impairments’ and ‘barriers’
Describe the four fundamental principles of WCAG
Understand the basic history of WCAG
Recognise that accessibility requirements can be contradictory
Understand how accessibility is embedded in the Digital Service Standard
Name common assistive technologies (Screen readers, screen magnifiers, text-to-speech, voice recognition etc)
Describe what inclusion is
Describe the three principles of inclusive design
Tell the difference between person-first and identity-first language
Understand that there are risks associated with attempting design for disability without consulting people with disabilities
Understand that good intentions are not sufficient in delivering accessible services
Name some inventions that were first made either for or by people with disabilities
Describe ways of championing accessibility with stakeholders

Learning outcomes – APSC Learning Design Standards: Digital

‘Accessibility’ aligns to the following APSC Learning Design Standards:

Interaction design

2. User research for Interaction design
2.1 Understand the problem set and the needs of the User
Discover the needs of the user Undertake research to generate user insights along with the User Researcher.
2.2 User Research for the purposes of Interaction Design
Design, run and analyse experiments which generate user insights

Accessibility and inclusion

1. Accessible and inclusive Australian Government services
1.1. Defining accessibility and inclusion
Explain the importance of making Australian Government services inclusive and accessible.

2. Mandatory requirements for accessibility
2.1. Comply with accessibility legal and policy framework

3. Accessibility throughout the product lifecycle
3.1. What to do in Discovery
Influence discovery research to address accessibility and inclusion

4. Championing accessibility within your organisation
4.2. Advocating for change
Promote an organisational focus on accessibility and inclusion.
4.3. Influencing strategically
Influence and negotiate to ensure accessibility and inclusion are considered in corporate decision making

User research

1. The role of user research in the digital service design context
1.1. User research for government services
Describe the role of user research in meeting the Digital Service Standard
Explain the importance of understanding all user groups
Conduct user research
Conduct user research as a team sport

2. User research protocols and governance
2.2. Ethics
Apply ethical considerations in designing and conducting research

3. User research in the different design and delivery phases
3.1. User research in discovery
Describe the purpose of user research in discovery
Identify user groups to conduct research with
Select the user research activities in discovery
Describe the user research activity outcomes

4. Methods and tools of user research
4.1. Selecting the right research method
Define a technique to help in applying a user research method
Identify the intended stage and purpose for each method