Everyone counts: accessibility and Australia’s Disability Strategy Outcomes Framework
Launched in December 2022, the Australian Disability Strategy Outcomes Framework (ADSOF), is the central platform for reporting data on the progress of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2031 in an accessible and interactive format.
The strategy aims for an inclusive Australian society that enables people with disability to fulfil their potential as equal members of the community. It was developed by the Australian, state and territory governments in consultation with people living with disability.
The strategy sets out a plan for continuing to improve the lives of people with disability across 7 outcome areas – health, education, employment, housing, safety, services and community attitude. Our website collates available data for 85 measures that track and report on the progress achieved across these areas, drawing on data from multiple sources.
We adopted an innovative approach to build a fully accessible website to support the strategy. This was the first time we had partnered with people with disability to
develop web content. Their input, combined with feedback from the Department of Social Services and digital access experts , enabled us to establish highly accessible and inclusive web pages that fully comply with Web Contact Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
The web pages are built to:
- use accessible data visualisation software and an inbuilt text-to-voice feature
- be compatible across accessibility technologies, including screen readers, magnification and audio output
- be accessible on multiple devices, including desktop computers, tablets and smart phones, and compatible with multiple operating systems
- use plain language so information is easy to read and understand.
Information on the website can also be downloaded in Easy Read, Auslan, braille and various community languages formats.
The website provides everyone – from people with disability and their carers to policymakers from all levels of governments – with a shared understanding of the disability strategy’s progress against the ADSOF measures. This will be critical to driving effective change and improvements for people with disability over the next 10 years and beyond.