Accessibility

Last updated:27 June 2014

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Commonwealth agencies are required by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 to ensure that information and services are accessible by people with disabilities.

Geoscience Australia is committed to providing web content that is accessible to the widest possible audience.

Standards compliance

The Geoscience Australia website has been built according to XHTML 1.0 Transitional specifications. Layout is controlled by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and has been written according to the CSS 2.1 specifications.

Structured and meaningful Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) has been used to assist users accessing the site via non-visual means, such as users of screen-reading software. This means:

  • The website is designed to display correctly on all commonly used Internet browsers. We aim to improve the display on mobile devices.
  • The site has been designed to work effectively with accessibility hardware and/or software.
  • To accommodate a range of connection speeds, page sizes have been kept to a minimum.
  • Our web pages are scalable to accommodate various common screen resolutions.
  • Print style sheets are provided to make printed pages clear and free from unnecessary material.
  • Links are friendly URLs and include meaningful link text which can be read by screen readers.
  • Images on this site have meaningful alternative 'alt' tags which can be read by screen readers.
  • All navigation on this site is fully accessible without Javascipt, Cascading Style Sheets or graphical images. The navigation is accessible to screen readers.

Transition to WCAG 2.0

We are working towards Level AA conformance of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2 (WCAG 2.0), developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Databases and online services

Some of the databases and online services accessed via this site do not currently conform to WCAG Level AA. We are working to address this.

If you have difficulty accessing a database or other service on our site we will endeavor to assist, please contact us.

Downloadable documents

This website has a large number of documents that cannot be provided in HTML format. Also, to assist users to download and share web content, some documents are available in Portable Document Format (PDF). To view or print a PDF file you will need the free Acrobat Reader.

We recognise that some clients may have difficulty accessing PDF files and have taken steps to ensure where possible that alternate formats are available, commonly Word documents (DOC).

Where an official document is formally published on the website, for accessibility reasons it may be provided as a PDF document but also in HTML and Word formats. In these cases the PDF version is taken to be the official version. To the extent that there is any inconsistency between the versions, the PDF version should be regarded as definitive.

We are also working towards ensuring new PDF files added to the website have accessibility features applied, such as correct reading order, bookmarks, alternate text and tagging.

For downloadable documents, an icon appears alongside the document link to indicate the file type and size.

If you have difficulty accessing a document on our site we will endeavor to provide it to you in format that meets your needs, please contact us.

Video and audio

We are working towards ensuring every video, audio and other multimedia on the website will include an accessible transcript for download located near the video. The videos are designed to be viewed on a low bandwidth connection but you may still need to wait for the video to buffer enough for you to watch it smoothly. If you cannot view the video, make sure that your firewall is not blocking the file and that you have the correct codecs installed.

Alternative formats

Please contact us if you need information from the website presented in an alternative format for accessibility reasons.

Accessibility help - contact us

Accessibility of this website is very important to Geoscience Australia; please contact us if you require information from the website presented in an alternative format; have any problems using the site; or for any comments, feedback or questions.