The Digital Access WA Project
The Digital Access WA Project is a state-wide initiative to create advocacy, education, measurement, and support to improve our standards of digital accessibility. This initiative is CFA Australia’s systemic advocacy service, as funded by the WA Department of Communities, to benefit the lives of people living with disability by working with government, not-for-profit and education sectors. We seek to empower organisations across Western Australia to create more inclusive digital environments to ensure all individuals have equal access to information and opportunity regardless of ability.
CFA Australia has been fortunate to receive a grant extension, taking the project into its 4th year. In line with this, we have opened up EOIs for Local Government Entities in WA to receive a free website accessibility audit.
Call for EOIs
The Digital Access WA Project offers free accessibility audits to Local Government Entities in WA, particularly local government in regional, remote and rural areas, aiming to enhance website accessibility for people with disability. This initiative supports Local Government Entities by evaluating and auditing their current level of digital access, receiving customised roadmaps to understand what needs to be done to achieve their accessibility goals, and practical steps for implementation.
EOI – Audits for Local Government Entities
The Digital Access WA Project Key Initiatives
The initial 3-year project has met all its key deliverables, and the following information provides insights on the project’s success. As part of this initiative, CFA Australia aimed to influence policy and produce outcomes which embed awareness of and the need for digital accessibility as a standard in the WA government, education, and disability sectors. The initiative was split into 7 parts, with the goal to ensure that all people with disability have equal access to information and opportunity.
Part 1 – Discovery Project
CFA Australia engaged, listened to and amplified the views of people with disability to understand and advocate directly for the changes needed to enhance digital access in WA. In line with this, CFA Australia produced 3 digital accessibility ‘explainer-series’ videos led by people with disability who identified obstacles to digital access and offered practical solutions to overcome them. These videos included both Auslan interpretation as well as captioning, ensuring accessibility for all. The 3 videos are:
1. What is Digital Accessibility?
2. How Digital Accessibility Affects Me
3. Why Digital Access is Access for All
Part 2 – Engage, Survey, Report
CFA Australia produced benchmarks and surveys that determined the current state of accessibility service provision in WA reporting
sector by sector, in particular, the not-for-profit and primary and secondary education sectors. CFA Australia conducted an Enquiry of Interest (EOI) for the not-for-profit sector and primary and secondary schools in WA to identify potential organisations to provide digital accessibility audits and roadmaps for.
Part 3 – Discovery Workshops
CFA Australia created practical and disability-led digital access education and outreach programs, delivered as workshops. Although only 3 regional workshops in WA were initially planned as part of the grant funding, thanks to the generous support of the DoC, we were able to go organise for 7 regional workshops, alongside 7 workshops in Perth’s metropolitan area. Specifically, these workshops were held at:
1. Broome
2. Bunbury
3. Busselton
4. Esperance
5. Geraldton
6. Kalgoorlie
7. Mandurah
8. York
9. Perth Metro
All of the workshops were delivered by staff members of CFA Australia with lived experience of disability alongside expert knowledge in the space of digital accessibility.
This part of the project also featured the creation of an online course for introductory and advanced digital accessibility training to
upskill organisations across WA. The course was curated and produced for people who could not attend the regional workshops,
ensuring everyone across WA could have access to digital accessibility education. The curriculum was developed in collaboration with the University of the Sunshine Coast, a recognised leader in regional education in Australia, and Dr. Scott Hollier, a renowned accessibility expert with lived experience of disability and practical experience in authoring similar courses. Although only 2 modules
were initially planned as part of the grant funding, we were able to produce 6 modules which continue to be available free-of-charge.
Part 4 – Audit to Implementation Roadmaps
CFA Australia provided free digital accessibility audits to 21 not-for-profit organisations and 7 primary and secondary schools in WA. This went beyond the initial grant expectations of 25 audits. Audit-to-implementation roadmaps were developed to outline the digital accessibility issues and to recommend the steps needed to improve and maintain accessibility as well as guidance to making the required accessibility changes on their website.
Part 5 – Policy Development Advocacy
CFA Australia played a vital role in providing policy support and consultation to support the WA government’s move to making WCAG 2.2 the required digital standard in WA.
Part 6 – Celebrating Success in Digital Access
The Digital Access WA Project was concluded by a celebratory event held in-person at the Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts, Australia’s (DADAA) venue in Fremantle, WA, in June 2025. In line with the summation and conclusion of the grant deliverables over its successful 3-year span, CFA Australia produced 2 videos in-house to present the impact made throughout the initiative as well as to highlight success stories and show the benefits of reducing the digital divide to decision makers, workplaces, and communities. Both videos have been included below:
- Beyond Compliance – Accessibility in the Workplace Regional Workshop Tour
- From Audit to Implementation – Training and Beyond
Part 7 – Impact Measurement and Recommendations
As part of the Digital Access WA project, CFA Australia approached The Behaviour Change Collaborative (BCC) to lead the impact measurement and evaluation of the initiative from a third-party perspective. In particular, CFA Australia looked to measure the impact of the Discovery Workshops, the online course, and the accessibility audits and roadmaps. Impact measurements included pre-and post-surveys for all initiative deliverables.
Accessibility Audits and Roadmaps
Those who participated in CFA Australia’s website accessibility audit almost universally felt it to be highly useful for their organisation, with 95% reporting that the process was informative and 90% agreeing that it provided clear guidance about how to increase their organisation’s digital accessibility.
The usefulness of the audit process was evidenced by the impacts it had, with participants recording a substantial uplift in
their knowledge about digital accessibility post-audit. Notably, close to two-thirds of those who completed the audit process felt they subsequently had moderate or high technical knowledge about how to make their organisations’ website accessible.
The evaluation indicated that the audit process had a positive impact on the accessibility of participating organisations’ websites. For example, half of the participants indicated that at least three-quarters of their website was accessible following implementation of the audit actions, compared to only 20% prior to the audits. Following completion of CFA Australia’s website audit process, representatives from participating organisations were highly likely to believe that website accessibility is important, showed very high levels of satisfaction with the audit process, and were almost universally likely to recommend the audit process to other organisations.
Participants’ verbatim feedback illustrates the high regard to the audit process and CFA Australia’s disability-led team were held in by those who took part. Here are some quotes from participating organisations:
“The results, report and roadmap (of the accessibility audit) were and are extremely useful in providing an evidence-based platform for us to use to make changes and prioritise further updates and ongoing reviews. Thank you”
“The audit process for our website was very simple for our organisation and has been invaluable. To have an accessibility expert from the Centre for Accessibility review of website and receiving a clear and concise report, has allowed us to identify what adjustments are necessary to make our website accessible for all users which is a priority for us as an organisation supporting parents and carers of children with disability.”
“The audit process was designed by a person with lived experience. This is distinctly different from a process designed by someone with only academic and technical knowledge.”
Discovery Workshops
More than 90% of attendees felt that the workshops helped them understand the usefulness of assistive technologies, gave them insights into the WCAG standards and informed them about how to use automated checking tools.
Most importantly, 93% of those who attended a workshop said that they were more likely to act to improve their organisation’s digital accessibility. This last indicator suggests that the learnings from the workshops are likely to be applied by attendees and therefore create a meaningful improvement in digital accessibility for people with disability. There were also very high levels of agreement that the videos that were created as part of the DoC grant deliverables were a valuable addition to the workshops, with over 90% finding the videos informative, understanding, and enhancing of their understanding of digital accessibility from the perspective of people with a disability.
The positive impacts of the workshops are evidenced by the wonderful feedback received as part of the post-audit survey:
“As a communications and engagement officer, it was fantastic to have the opportunity to learn about Digital Accessibility. My prior knowledge was minimal so I was very keen to learn more about how I can improve both personally and professionally online. Since the workshop, I have also been able to share what I learned with my colleagues. Through spreading the word about my learnings, I hope to drive improvement in accessibility in my organisation. I cannot thank the Centre for Accessibility enough for the fantastic opportunity to attend these workshops. I learned so much.”
“I recently attended the Digital Access workshop in Esperance, and I was truly impressed by the wealth of insightful information shared. As someone in a wheelchair with significant involvement in the disability sector, I thought I already had a good understanding, but the workshop taught me so much more. The knowledge I gained is already helping us improve our website, making it more accessible for people with vision impairments and other disabilities. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to attend locally in Esperance, rather than having to travel elsewhere.”
“The workshops were specific and practical. The topics were broken up into theory, hands on practical experiences e.g. using speech support tools on your phone or laptop as well showing case studies/examples of facilities that had issues and how they could be improved. This workshop made the learning relatable and being able to complete within the southwest meant that the other attendees from other organisations were experiencing similar issues and we could relate to each other”
Online Course
Among those who completed the course, their reported experiences of it were overwhelmingly positive, with all aspects of the course content and format rated extremely highly. All respondents felt that the course content was useful and the online format easy to navigate.
The effects of the course on topic knowledge and understanding were very highly rated, with more than 90% of those who completed the course feeling that it had increased their understanding of all content areas. The course had very positive impacts
on participants’ self-reported knowledge of digital accessibility overall, with this increasing significantly pre vs post course completion (62% to 82%).
The course was even more effective in raising participants’ confidence in their skills to improve digital accessibility for people with disability. Prior to the course, less than half of those enrolled felt confident in their skills (46%). Among course graduates, this rose significantly and substantially to 97% who felt confident in their skills in digital accessibility.
These results were extremely positive as an improvement in both knowledge and confidence suggested that graduates would
be effective in implementing course learnings going forward.
When asked about the most valuable insight or skill gained from the course, participants provided the following feedback:
“The practical tips to ensure documents are accessible, as well as the breakdown of the WCAG into simple principles. I also really like the explanation of the difference between inclusive design, accessibility and universal design. Makes sense!”
“It was very useful to have screen recordings walking through how to correct accessibility issues in Word and Adobe Acrobat Pro. This helped explain the tag tree and how to edit elements”
CFA Australia would like to sincerely thank the DoC for the incredible opportunity that the Systemic Advocacy grant provided for this initiative and bridging the divide for people with disability in WA.