This site has been designed to be as user friendly as possible to allow our customers to make the most of the site whatever their ability or disability.
Our responsive design means our information and services can be accessed on anywhere, anytime on desktop, tablets and mobile devices.
Accessibility help
This site has been developed to ensure content is available to the widest possible audience, including readers using assistive technology or accessibility features.
There are a number of legacy documents and forms that may not be accessible for some users; these are mainly in PDF and Word format.
These issues are being progressively resolved by replacing the majority of PDF and Word documents with web-based documents and html pages or providing appropriate alternatives.
If you are having trouble accessing pages or content on the website, please call us on 13 32 20 and we will strive to ensure you receive the information you need within 48 hours.
Note: Adobe Reader allows a PDF file to be saved as a plain text file. Select File from the Adobe Reader menu, then Save as other then Text.
Accessibility features
Many people use assistive technologies such as screen readers or screen magnifiers to help them view, read and navigate a website. To ensure our site delivers a good experience for all users, we have built and modified the site to support the accessibility needs of our customers.
Increase font size using the keyboard on Windows
Press the Ctrl and + keys to make the text size larger.
Press the Ctrl and - keys to make the text size smaller.
Increase font size using the keyboard on Apple Mac
Press the Command and + keys to make the text size larger.
Press Command and - keys to make the text size smaller.
Audio and video
Most of our videos are hosted on our YouTube site. We use closed captioning on our videos wherever possible and transcripts are available along with the standard accessibility options available from YouTube.
We aim to have text transcripts for audio and captions for videos to assist our customers with impairments. This also allows users who don't want to listen to audio, such as those working in an open space office to be able to access the information.
If these do not meet your needs, we recommend the Accessible YouTube player available from http://cs.unc.edu/~gb/Accessible-YouTube/. This YouTube player allows users to navigate the YouTube controls using a keyboard, provides support for closed caption playback and works on the iPad and iPhone.
None of our videos are developed using Flash.
JAWS screen reader keyboard shortcuts
The navigation quick keys in the JAWS screen reader make it faster and easier for customers to move around our site and easily access the content.
The full list of short cuts is available from Freedom Scientific at http://www.freedomscientific.com/training/training-JAWS-keystrokes.htm.
Our commitment to user friendly and accessible web services
The Department of Customer Service has endorsed the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (commonly know as WCAG 2.0) and we are implementing the Australian Government's Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy (NTS).
WCAG 2.0 is a series of international standards from the World Wide Web Consortium. It identifies techniques to create and manage web content in ways that are more accessible to people with disabilities including those who may use assistive technologies like screen readers. Websites that are more accessible are also generally more user friendly to everyone.
We take care to ensure our website and our web content meet the WCAG 2.0 standards to at least level AA compliance so that people of all abilities, including older people and those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments can access information and services.
We are committed to making our website as user friendly as possible. Extensive testing has been conducted to inform design, navigation and content on our website. We will continue to develop, evaluate and improve our site to ensure our customers needs are being met including those with:
- vision impairments which can range from slight vision problems, including those who wear glasses to colour blindness and various levels of blindness
- cognitive and motor skill impairments who may have had an injury, a stroke, an illness like Parkinson's or Cerebral Palsy, or are mature age
- hearing impairments including those with genetic deafness, environment deafness and are mature age.
Our commitment allows all people who use the website to enjoy a more user friendly and engaging experience.