Accessibility
Digital government services should be simpler, clearer and faster for all.
On this page
Mission for accessibility
Our team is here to help government digitise forms so they are simpler, clearer and meet the NZ Government Web Standards.
Our goal is to ensure that as many people as possible can access and use government digital services. To us, this means always striving to improve accessibility, usability, readability and responsiveness.
What problem are we trying to solve?
Many government forms are document-based, like PDFs. This is because PDFs and other document types are easier to create than HTML forms, especially for teams without any digital specialists. However, this comes with significant drawbacks.
PDFs can behave inconsistently with assistive technologies, such as screen readers and magnifiers. They can also be difficult to use on smaller screens.
Our solution to help tackle this problem and improve the accessibility of government services is to provide:
- a cost-effective way for government teams to digitise their forms
- a form building tool that is easy to use so that operations teams can build forms themselves
- accessible options for how to host these forms.
What are we doing now?
Our entire team is committed to accessibility because we see how making digital products accessible makes them better for everyone. We’ve invested in making the Business Connect platform accessible to people:
- with low vision
- with reading, learning or intellectual disabilities
- who use mobile and touch-based devices, voice assistant and speech recognition software.
Putting an emphasis on accessible design across the team has resulted in this now being baked into our development and testing processes.
Our most recent external system accessibility test was in September 2023 and resulted in further improvements. We look forward to our next assessment to help ensure the Business Connect platform is WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliant.
To read more about our current level of accessibility go to our accessibility statement.
What are we doing next?
We’ll keep improving accessibility of the Business Connect platform and our forms. But we won’t stop there – we have a goal that the FormBuilder tool will be fully accessible for NZ government employees to create forms.
We’re already collaborating with teams across government including the DIA Web Standards team for guidance and technical advice based on best practices. We’ll continue to seek support from leaders in the field to innovate and create a more inclusive digital future for New Zealand.