Web Accessibility 25 Years after the Sydney Olympics

Sydney Olympics web page without graphics

Yesterday, 15 September, was the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Olympics. I talked to ABC Canberra Radio about my experience as an expert witness in the Sydney Olympics SOCOG web accessibility case in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. I was asked by the lawyers for the complainant, to be one of their two expert witnesses on if the web site was accessible to someone who is blind. The other witness, Jutta Treviranus, had far more expertise in this, but I had done some teaching about it at ANU. As IBM was providing computer systems for the games, I used their accessibility guidelines (which were based on those of W3C) to assess sample pages. I concluded the site did not meet the guidelines, as did Professor Treviranus. 

The most basic problem with the site is easily understood. If you can't see the images, there needs to be alternate text. Unfortunately the Sydney Olympics site did not have text to indicate which sport was which. I suggested the website would be relatively simple and quick to fix. Unfortunately SOCOG did not agree, did not fix it and was fined $20,000. Subsequently BOCG asked me to provide them with advice on the Beijing Olympics website, which I was delighted to do.