Online Accessibility Course Accessible Online

Tom Worthington's certificate of completion
for the Accessibility Fundamentals course
from Intopia, 18 May 2026

In support of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), the ANU College of Systems and Society invited staff to compete a short Intopia Accessibility fundamentals online course. The course has a similar format to the "AI Literacy for All", from Digital Education Council, which I recently completed. But fortunately, the Intopia course is much, much shorter, and has closed captions, as well as transcripts for the short videos. This gives a brief introduction as to why accessibility is important and how to do it. 

The Sydney Olympics web accessibility case is mentioned in the course. As it happens I was one of the expert witnesses presenting evidence in the case. Not due to my expertise, but I was free, had a suit, & no conflict of interest. ;-)

The Beijing Olympic committee then invited me over to talk about it.  

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.

World Product Day

Greetings from the World Product Day in Canberra. This is the second time today I turned up to an event having no idea what it was. The first was a Zoom Eportfolios Australia "PARE" "Shut up and write" session. This one is about accessibility: "Embedding accessibility throughout product development". There is pizza and post it notes, so I feel at home. 

Simon Chan is first up, talking about their product having to meet Microsoft User Interface standards. 

Adam Cooper and Brigitta (Bri) Norton will then talk on the Digital Transformation Agency’s Digital Service Standard.

Addressing Aging with AgeTech

Greetings from the IEEE AgeTech Aging and Longevity Webinar. This is early in the morning for me in Australia, so I was reluctant to attend. But being an IEEE Life Member I am in the age bracket for the topic. I am of an age where I have to deal with an increasing number of health, financial, and other issues, so Interest in how tech can help me. In recent weeks I have been to clinics, hospitals, transported by ambulance, scanned by CT & MRI devices, hooked to computer monitors, struggled to use health apps.

The webinar has good speakers, but is a little frustrating by being very US-centric & also having limited feedback. One speaker described the coming presenters as "pinch hitters", which I assume is a baseball term, so lost on Australian participants brought up on cricket. ;-) In the Q&A I asked about this, but did not get a reply. The chat forum is turned off, which limits the ability of participants to have a discussion. 

Speakers have covered some of the issues to do with the need for agetech to address the interfaces needed for people aging, the potential for technology in the home to provide more independence (and lower costs). 

I suggest we also should look at the positives. Smart phone offer the opportunity for better interfaces for those with a disability. These applications also help others, via the "Curb-Cut Effect": an accessibility feature introduced for one group can help other people. 

From purely self interest, AgeTech also has a group of increasinly wealthy & powerful customers. Older users represent a group whom many have disposable income & will vote for government funding to be spent on services for. 

One problem with this webinar is that it is taking a long time (44 minutes so far) to get to the call to action. So far none of the speakers has said what I can do, as a technologist, educator & IEEE member. Eventually I found a form to express interest for IEEE SA Industry Connection: IC24-010: Technology Standards for Aging (Age Tech).