Buying accessible digital products and services everyone can use

Updated: 27 Jul 2023

How to buy accessible digital products and services that are usable for everyone, including people with disabilities.

This page helps people buy accessible digital products and services.

Accessibility means everyone can access and use a product or service, regardless of their abilities. This includes the users of the product or service you’re buying.

From the start, you should talk to diverse users to understand their needs for what you’re buying. This will help you identify and analyse accessibility risks early and how to address them. You can find examples of risks in the accessibility risk guidance.

NSW Government employees have a legal responsibility to buy accessible products and services.
Your product or service will work for as many users as possible and deliver a better experience. One in 5 people in NSW have a disability, so it’s likely that a current or future user has accessibility needs.
Accessibility makes it easier to engage, reach and serve more customers and employees.
You avoid potential legal challenges.
It reduces the cost of fixing it later. Fixing accessibility later can cost up to 30 times more than fixing it early.

Consider accessibility

Accessibility is relevant when you're buying:

products with a digital user interface, such as software, websites, systems and apps
products with control mechanisms, such as hardware like keyboards or kiosks
any form of digital content, such as videos, social media posts, infographics, reports and guides.

To check the steps to buy accessible products and services, use this accessible procurement checklist DOCX, 517.38 KB.

If you need support, complete the accessibility requests form or email digital.accessibility@customerservice.nsw.gov.au

Include accessibility requirements

If accessibility is important for what you’re buying, it becomes your responsibility to buy digital products and services that everyone can use, irrespective of their abilities.

Work out what to include in your documents when buying products or services using the accessibility requirements list XLSX, 106.1 KB.

General requirements

At minimum, to ensure you’re buying an accessible product or service, include the following general requirements for the supplier to answer:

The digital product or service complies with the following functional performance statement from the Australian Standard EN 301 549:

The digital product or service must enable all users to locate, identify, and operate functions, and access the content and support information provided, regardless of physical, cognitive, or sensory abilities. Any accessibility features within the product or service maintains the privacy of people using those features at the same level as others.

If required, the supplier can demonstrate how the product or service delivers on this statement. This should be done using the accessibility features and assistive technologies found on both Apple and Microsoft devices and demonstrated by users of assistive technologies.

Supply a recent (less than 18 months) accessibility conformance report (ACR) for the current version of your product or service. The ACR summarises the extent to which the product or service meets standards. The ACR should use the relevant template.

State whether the report was done by an external third party or internally.

Users with a disability and users who use assistive technologies have tested your product or service.

Outline accessibility issues with your product or service, and how the issues impact access for users.

Outline what is being done to fix these issues and when they will be fixed, and intermediary plans to give users effective access to the product or service in the meantime.

Consider users with different physical, auditory, cognitive and visual abilities.

Add accessibility requirements in your documents

Be sure to state your accessibility requirements in your documents. This allows suppliers to understand accessibility needs early on and ensures accessibility is part of the decision-making process.

business cases
funding requests
risk assessments
general tender requirements
requests for proposal (RFPs) or requests for quote (RFQs)
procurement plans
evaluation plans
contracts

You can find these documents and instructions on how to use them on your agency’s intranet or in our resource library.

Efe needs an online survey tool for their business unit. Because the survey has a digital interface, accessibility is relevant. They talk to staff and customers to understand needs. They talk to Ash, who uses a screen reader, and Peta, who is dyslexic. They use the accessibility personas to understand the needs of other users. Efe copies and pastes the general accessibility requirements and some web requirements into their documents.

Suppliers provide evidence

Suppliers should provide evidence of how their product or service meets your accessibility requirements XLSX, 106.1 KB. The evidence must be verifiable and should present consistent findings.

Examples of evidence:

a recent (less than 18 months) accessibility conformance report using the latest template. The report summarises the extent to which the product or service meets standards
on request, user manuals or help files
if required during evaluation, a demonstration of how the product or service is accessible, including with users with disabilities

Evaluate evidence

People with disabilities and accessibility expertise can help you compare and choose a product or service that everyone can use.

Include an accessibility expert on the panel.
Have an accessibility expert do an assessment.
Invite people with disabilities to the panel.

If you invite people with disabilities to the panel, help them feel safe and empowered. Let them know what to expect, including that the product or service might not be accessible yet. Be transparent about what will be done with their feedback. They should be fairly compensated for their time.

If you need support, fill in the accessibility requests form or email Accessibility NSW at digital.accessibility@customerservice.nsw.gov.au

The product or service should meet the minimum level of accessibility compliance below. If not, consider a more accessible product or service. You can check the compliance using the accessibility conformance report provided by the supplier.

Content, software or web: compliant with Level AA of the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. It’s part of the Australian accessibility standards.
Hardware: provides multiple ways to activate and operate the device (using sight, speech or touch). If it’s a kiosk, it provides unobstructed forward or side reach of all physical control mechanisms or interface elements.

Ask your shortlisted suppliers to demonstrate that their product or service is accessible and usable. The demonstration is evidence that the product or service is usable, not just accessible.

Things to think about for the demonstration:

The demonstration should use the accessibility features and assistive technologies found on both Apple and Microsoft devices used by your department.
Suppliers include users with a range of abilities, to get feedback on accessibility and usability. The supplier could invite users or you could invite employees or customers.
If you are inviting users to attend demonstrations, help them feel safe and empowered. Let them know what to expect, including that the product or service might not be accessible yet. Be transparent about decision making. Users should be fairly compensated for their time.

Assess and compare the evidence to determine which suppliers meet the accessibility requirements:

assess the accessibility conformance report
assess responses to the accessibility requirements
evaluate the suppliers’ demonstrations

You can view examples of poor, fair and good supplier responses in the evaluation guidance.

A supplier sets up a demonstration and invites external users with disabilities. Efe also asks Ash and Peta if they would like to come. Efe lets Ash and Peta know what to expect. The users try the online survey tool. Ash says the content is a bit hard to navigate with their keyboard. Peta likes that the content is chunked and easy to read, but would like a read aloud audio option. This feedback helps the panel select the supplier.

Select a product or service

It's likely that none of the products or services meet all the accessibility requirements. Select:

the most accessible product or service
the product or service preferred by users with disabilities
a supplier who is willing to commit to an accessibility roadmap to fix accessibility issues, and provide equally effective access for users in the meantime.

Products, services and assistive technology get updated regularly. It's important that product owners test the accessibility of the product or service regularly.

Manual and automated testing can validate a product’s accessibility. It’s important to test suppliers’ prototypes and new version of a product. If you need Accessibility NSW to support with testing, complete the accessibility requests form.

If there are accessibility issues, you should work with suppliers to develop an accessibility roadmap, to provide alternative, equally effective access for users.

The roadmap should include:

accessibility issues and priorities
when those accessibility issues will be fixed
whether the fixes will require modification, customisation or configuration
plans to provide equally effective access to users in the meantime
upcoming releases of new product versions.

If the supplier doesn't already have a roadmap, ask them to make one.

When finalising your contracts, include the following:

accessibility clauses (find clauses within MICTA/ICTA contract templates or Core& contract templates)
accessibility roadmap and agreed timelines to fix accessibility issues.

Don’t forget to inform any users you tested with or included on your evaluation panel what product or service was selected and why.

The panel selects Survey Signals as their supplier. Efe asks Survey Signals to create an accessibility roadmap. It includes the accessibility issues shared by Ash and Peta. Efe and Survey Signals work to finalise the contract. Efe lets Ash and Peta know which supplier was selected and why.

Manage accessibility issues

Accessibility responsibilities continue through the life of the product.

Product owners should regularly test the product or service. This means new or remaining accessibility issues can be tracked and fixed by suppliers.
There should also be a way for users to give feedback.
If new accessibility issues are found, suppliers should add them to the roadmap and provide equally effective access for all users.

Survey Signals (the supplier) releases a new update of their online survey tool. Efe runs a quick accessibility test and finds some issues. Efe also receives feedback from Ash that their screen reader can’t read some of the content. Survey Signals finds another way for Ash to use the online survey tool, while they fix the accessibility issue.

Find templates and resources

The following templates can help you buy accessible products and services:

Get support

If you need support, fill in the accessibility requests form or email Accessibility NSW at digital.accessibility@customerservice.nsw.gov.au