Judging Criteria

Judging Criteria (Website Stream)

Silver Award

Silver accreditation logo will be granted if the selected webpages of an Entrant's website fulfil all ten judging criteria as follows -

1. Provide meaningful text alternative for non-text contents

   • All non-text contents, such as icons, photos, pictures, images, banners and maps that are presented to users have a text alternative that provides a meaningful description.
2. Provide accessible Flash/Animated contents or allow to skip

   • If Flash/Animated content is provided, accessible version Flash/Animated content or a skip function shall be provided.
3. Allow to perform all operations through a keyboard interface

   • All functions on a webpage are operable through a keyboard interface; the operation shall not enforce a time limit for individual keystrokes.
4. Easy to turn off background sound or set as user-initiated only

   • If any audio on a webpage plays automatically for more than 3 seconds, either a function is available to pause or stop the audio, or a function is available to control audio volume independently for that specific audio.
5. Provide means to close popup windows

   • If there is a popup window, a close button shall be included to allow closing the popup window through keyboard interfaces.
6. Provide clear and informative links

   • If there is a link, either the link text alone or the text preceding the link is clear and meaningful in order to help users navigate.
7. Provide accurate and appropriate headings/labels

   • To help users understand what information is contained in the webpage and how information is organised, use clear and appropriate headings and labels to describe a topic or purpose.
8. Make website structure and content easy to be used with assistive technologies

   • Navigational mechanisms that are repeated on multiple webpages within a set of webpages occur in the Corresponding relative order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the user.

   • Use heading mark-up (h1..h6) to identify headings in the content. Heading mark-up allows assistive technologies to present the heading status of text to users.
9. Provide input assistance such as proper labels for user input and error identification and description etc.

   • If an input error is automatically detected, the error shall be identified and described to users.
   • Labels or instructions are provided when prompting user input.
10. Provide error prevention for transactions

    • For transaction involved legal or financial commitments, error prevention mechanism shall be included through at least one of the following -

      1. Reversible: submissions are reversible.
      2. Checked: input data are checked for errors and users are allowed to correct them.
      3. Confirmed: a mechanism is available for reviewing, confirming, and correcting information before finalising the submission.

Gold Award

Gold accreditation logo will be granted if the selected webpages of an Entrant's website fulfils all ten judging criteria of Silver Award AND all eleven judging criteria as follows -

1. Build webpages with predictable operations

   • For any component that is able to trigger an event, it will not change the context (for example jumping to a new window) immediately when the component receives focus.
2. Able to skip repetitive blocks

   • A mechanism is available to bypass blocks of content that are repeated on multiple webpages.
3. Build webpages with user-initiated auto-updating

   • If there is any moving information that starts automatically and lasts more than five seconds, there shall be a mechanism for users to pause, stop or hide it.
4. Provide sufficient time for users to read the content and operate the function

   • If there is a time-limited function, sufficient time shall be allowed for users to interact with the content through the following -

     1. time limit can be turned off; or
     2. time limit can be extended by a simple action
5. Text can be resized up to 200 percent without loss of content

   • Except for captions and images of text, text can be resized without assistive technology up to 200 percent without loss of content or functionality.
6. Provide in-sync content for text-only version of a website
   

   • If a text-only version of a website is provided, the content shall be in-sync with that in the graphical version. Update mechanism for contents in a text-only version shall be in place.
7. Provide sufficient colour contrast

   • The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. Logo or brand name is exempted.
8. Ensure correct syntax of webpages for compatibility with browsers and assistive technologies

   • For content coded with mark-up languages, elements shall have complete start and end tags, correct nested coding.
9. Provide captions or sign language for 20% of pre-recorded videos published in the recent 2 years

   • Captions or sign language are provided for 20% of pre-recorded videos and audio content published in the most recent 2 years, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labelled as such.
10. Provide meaningful title, summary or description for table header as well as data

    • To ensure that the information and relationships of content conveyed in form of a table is perceivable to all.
11. Provide an accessibility statement with contact points for the website
    

    • Provide an accessibility statement with contact point for website users to contact the website owners when they encounter accessibility problems.