Government Leadership

The Government has developed a set of accessibility requirements and best practices for the design of government websites and e-services since 1999, and published them in the Guidelines on Dissemination of Information through Government Websites for all Bureaux and Departments. With effect from 1 January 2013, we required all government websites to meet the more stringent requirements under Level AA standard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.0 promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium. For instance, websites should be able to work with screen readers and use colours that are visible to persons with colour blindness, so that persons with visual impairment can obtain the online information; all audio contents on websites should have text transcript or subtitles to ensure that hearing-impaired persons can obtain the information transmitted through sound.

To supplement the Guidelines, the DPO has also produced the following practical guides for reference by website developers and administrators: