What's in a Cover?

Designing templates for documents to upload to the new Internet site is a very long process... Draft templates have already been through many versions and we aren't there yet - although we are getting closer...

Policy Template (updated 19th July)

Templates are being designed for master documents which will be in Word (.docx). When approved documents will be saved in PDF format for upload to the new Document Centre (SharePoint 2010) and then linked to the new Internet site (another instance of SharePoint).

Templates have been designed with the following in mind:

• A simple and recognisable cover that complies with the Tasmanian Government Style Guide
• Standard headings and structure for policy, procedures and guideline documents that are designed for easy readability for a public audience
• Designing for accessibility in Word and the exported PDF. PDF Accessibility for Everyone presentations usefully summarise the workflow required from Word to PDF to ensure readers for the vision impaired can smoothly process the documents.

A decision must be made soon about providing alternative formats for online documents. Should we provide one or more alternative formats?

• PDF
• Word
• HTML

National Web Accessibility Guidelines state that "Agencies are reminded that it is still a requirement to publish an alternative to all PDF documents (preferably in HTML)". The guidelines also state that "any technology may be used, but where it cannot prove its accessibility support, agencies must provide multiple accessible formats". SharePoint 2012 does claim accessibility support. 

Vision Australia have a 2012 report that includes an assessment of SharePoint 2010 conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0).

We have more planning to do here.