Accessibility

Our Commitment to Accessibility

A number of accessibility features have been implemented across News.com.au to make the website more accessible to people with visual, motor or cognitive disabilities. We are continually enhancing these features in line with accessibility standards where feasible.

Some of the accessibility enhancements include:

Navigation

• There is a "Skip navigation" link at the top of each page to enable users with screen readers to go directly to important content.
• A text-only site map provides links to all the main areas and sub-areas of the site. The sitemap is located on the bottom of the page or in the skiplink for screen readers.
• All navigation will still function without javascript. The javascript only enhances the experience for users with javascript turned on.

Links

• All links are text-based. If an image is used for any link, techniques are used to keep the text within the code so they are still text-friendly for screen readers, text-based browsers and for those who browser with styles off.
• All link rollovers are high-contrast so they are easily distinguished from regular text.
• Link content text is contextual when possible (eg. Instead of ‘more’, the link may read ‘more business news’) to make navigation easier for screen readers.

Images

• A text description has been added to each image within <alt> and/or <title> tags. This will assist screen readers and users who browse the internet with images off.

Forms

All forms are built with accessibility in mind, including:

• Use of the label tag. The label specifically associates a piece of text with a form field which benefits screen readers. 
• Tab indexing. This allows navigation of a form with the keyboard by tabbing through in a logical, assigned order.
• Form Validation. If a form is submitted incorrectly, the error message returned informs the user of missing information clearly and logically.

Fonts

Font sizes have been taken into consideration for optimal reading. Some users may find increasing the text size within their browser makes reading pages easier.

To change the text size on News.com.au:

• There are A+ and A- icons on each story page to make it easier to adjust font size for those users who cannot do it through their browser.

Printable Pages

• All pages are optimised for printing offline. This will aid those who prefer to read articles offline and / or cannot read them on a computer monitor.

Standards Compliance

• All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. Separation of structure (HTML), presentation (CSS) and behaviour (javascript) is practiced where possible.
• Our Network should attempt to meet a WCAG 1.0 "Double-A" conformance level for accessibility. Full information and a conformance level checklist can be found on the W3C website:
  
  
  • Accessibility checklist
  • Accessibility Guidelines (general)
  All of these guidelines must be balanced with our business objectives and are followed whenever feasibly possible.

Tools on the Web

Some tools online make it easier for people with disabilities to view and navigate web content. These include:

• Mozilla/Firefox Accessibility Extension
• Internet Explorer Web Accessibility Toolbar

We are continually testing and modifying News.com.au for accessibility, but there may be some legacy pages and/or pages developed by third-parties that are not fully compliant with our accessibility standards.