Web Standards effective from March 2025
The Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO) has updated the NZ Government Web Standards to incorporate the Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.2 and other improvements.
2025 Web Standards
The new web standards in effect , includes stronger and clearer accessibility and customer experience requirements.
From a Web to a Digital Accessibility Standard
While these new Web Standards are in effect, the GCDO is working to replace the Web Accessibility Standard with a Digital Accessibility Standard (DAS). This work is part of the Service Modernisation Roadmap. All digital content and services including mobile apps, not just websites, will need to be accessible. We will also be recommending that the DAS apply to more public sector organisations than the Web Standards currently do.
The GCDO will continue working across the system with agencies to help them create digital content and services that meet the DAS. Some Service Modernisation Roadmap initiatives, like an all-of-government design system and a refreshed Digital Service Design Standard will help ‘bake in’ the new requirements and support agencies to deliver a customer experience that’s accessible by default.
Meanwhile, the requirements in the Web Usability Standard will be incorporated into a new standard, or possibly become part of the refreshed Digital Service Design Standard.
Consultation on the new Web Standards
A consultation on proposed changes to the Web Standards was held in and . Feedback was received from:
- 14 central and local government agencies
- 8 disability organisations and individual representatives
- 2 accessibility consultancies
- 1 web design firm
- 1 independent.
As a result of the consultation feedback, some of the proposed changes to the Web Standards were revised.
The final substantive changes to the new Web Standards are described below.
New in both Web Standards
Websites an organisation is ‘responsible for’
The previous version of the Web Standards applied to web pages or websites that are ‘produced or maintained, in part or in whole,’ by a mandated organisation. The new Web Standards apply to web pages or websites that a mandated organisation is ‘responsible for’.
The Cabinet Minute is the formal mechanism that established the Web Standards and their scope of application. That scope does not include any website that a mandated organisation contributes to in some way. It’s recommended that mandated organisations take deliberate steps to ensure that websites to which they make substantive contributions are produced and/or maintained to meet the Web Standards.
‘Publicly facing’ and ‘internally facing’
The Web Accessibility Standard continues to apply both to ‘publicly facing’ and ‘internally facing’ web pages. One section of the Web Usability Standard also applies to both, while its other section applies just to ‘publicly facing’ websites.
‘Publicly facing’
In the new Web Standards, ‘publicly facing’ means it can be accessed by members of the public or people who are not employees, staff or authorised paid personnel of a New Zealand Government public sector organisation.
This includes a website or web page behind a login authentication mechanism that controls access by members of the public or people who are not employees, staff or authorised paid personnel of a New Zealand Government public sector organisation.
Examples of publicly facing websites include an:
- organisation’s corporate website
- extranet for liaising with service providers.
‘Internally facing’
In the new Web Standards, ‘internally facing’ means it can be accessed only by people who are employees, staff or authorised paid personnel of a New Zealand Government public sector organisation.
Examples of internally facing websites include an organisation’s:
- intranet
- web-based document management system.
Inactive web pages
Archived web pages remain exempt from some Web Standards requirements. However, the term ‘archived’ is regularly used by agencies to refer to pages that have been removed from a website. To avoid confusion, ‘archived web page’ is now called ‘inactive web page’ and represents a web page whose main content:
- is no longer needed for active administration purposes
- is neither modified nor updated after the date of inactivity
- is marked as inactive or archived
- includes accessible instructions for users to request an accessible version of the same content.
Note that archived web pages that met the previous Web Standards will continue to meet the new Web Standards.
New in the Web Accessibility Standard 1.2
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) that form the basis of the Web Accessibility Standard were updated to version 2.2 in . To stay current with the latest WCAG, the Web Accessibility Standard now requires that web pages meet WCAG 2.2 at Level AA, whereas the current Standard requires WCAG 2.1 at Level AA.
WCAG 2.2 makes 1 success criterion obsolete (4.1.1 Parsing), and introduces 6 new Level A and AA success criteria that make content usable for, among others, sighted keyboard users, people with motor disabilities, and people with reading or learning disabilities.
For details on what’s new in WCAG 2.2:
Comparison with WCAG 2.1 — W3C
Audio description and live captioning
All disability representatives who responded to the consultation strongly support removing exceptions around audio description and live video captioning. Agencies agree but face constraints around budget and the availability of live caption and audio description providers, especially those who can accommodate both te reo Māori and English. The cost constraints are usually worse for smaller government agencies.
Modified Success Criterion (SC) 1.2.4 Captions (Live)
The new Web Accessibility Standard includes a modified version of WCAG SC 1.2.4 Captions (Live):
Captions should be provided for all live audio content in synchronised media, and must be provided if the synchronised media includes high-stakes information or services where the equivalent information or services are not simultaneously published as text.
Note that SC 1.2.4 applies to video broadcast and not 2-way multimedia calls between 2 or more people through web applications or services like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. In the latter scenario, the host caller is responsible for providing captions if required by any participants.
Guidance will be provided around expectations for caption accuracy and confirming that automated captions on their own are currently insufficient: human-supported captioning remains necessary.
Modified SC 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)
The new Web Accessibility Standard also includes a modified version of SC 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded):
Audio description should be provided for all prerecorded video content in synchronised media published on or after , and must be provided for all synchronised media that includes high-stakes information or services.
Note that WCAG SC 1.2.5 only requires ‘standard audio description’ where the descriptive narration is added during existing pauses in the video’s dialogue. If there are no existing pauses, then no standard audio description can be provided. Also note that in a well-planned video, the speakers in the video will describe in the main audio track all meaningful visual information, making audio description unnecessary.
Process for producing accessible videos — Web Accessibility Guide
Stronger captioning and audio description requirements
A ‘should’ requirement is not optional, but a requirement that must be met unless there are valid reasons not to and the impact of that decision has been considered.
These new ‘should’ requirements obligate mandated organisations to caption live video and audio describe all prerecorded video unless it’s impractically costly or technically infeasible. They are stronger requirements than those in the previous Web Accessibility Standard, which only had ‘must’ requirements for live captioning and audio description where the video includes high-stakes information or services.
High-stakes information or services
The definition of ‘high-stakes information or services’ now includes references to both housing and disability, as well as public consultations on policy and legislation.
‘High-stakes information or services’ are online information or services whose inaccessibility at the time of publication could reasonably be expected to have a negative impact on a disabled individual’s emergency preparedness and response, health and safety, or critical civil and political rights, entitlements, services, or obligations. This includes, but is not limited to, information or services related to:
- disability
- emergency preparedness, response and recovery
- entitlement or access to benefits, food, housing, education, consumer or other community protections, passports, or visas
- rights in criminal and civil proceedings
- central government elections or referenda
- tax obligations and rebates
- general health information, specific health advice, health and safety in employment
- public consultations on policy and legislation.
Complex visual maps
Complex visual maps still do not require a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose, but the definition of ‘complex visual map’ now refers to a graphical map that’s:
- used to convey a large amount of information, and
- detailed to the extent that creating a usable text alternative is impractical.
Examples of a complex visual map include a:
- topographic map that uses contour lines to represent the terrain elevations for a specific land area
- weather map showing meteorological features, such as the barometric pressures or the median annual rainfall, across a specific region
- network map showing all the devices connected to the internet in Aotearoa New Zealand.
New in the Web Usability Standard 1.4
Contact information
The public has an established need for offline channels to engage with government organisations face-to-face or person-to-person over the phone.
A website’s contact information must now include all of the following for the mandated organisation responsible for the website:
- an email address monitored daily during business hours where emails received are acknowledged within 3 business days with an indication of when a full response can be expected
- a postal address monitored daily during business hours
- a physical street address open to the public during business hours, if one exists
- the number of a telephone line available and monitored daily during business hours
- the telephone number for each call centre that supports a service provided by the website, and
- a link to the New Zealand Relay Service (NZ Relay) for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, deafblind, or who have a speech impairment.
In the previous version of the Web Usability Standard, including a link to NZ Relay was a ‘should’ requirement.
Privacy statements
The new Web Usability Standard requires both an Organisation Privacy Statement (OPS) and a Website Privacy Statement (WPS). The OPS describes, at a general level, all the ways an organisation collects and uses personal information, while the WPS describes how the particular website does that.
The OPS and WPS can meet these requirements by linking to each other and to other privacy statements. This gives agencies some freedom to adopt an approach that suits their context and does not require more than what’s in the Privacy Act 2020.
For full details, see the new privacy statement requirements.
Privacy Act 2020 — New Zealand Legislation
Links to non-HTML files
There is a new requirement for links to non-HTML files: Except for links on inactive web pages, links to non-HTML files should include the file’s format and size in their link text. This provides better accessibility for people using screen readers and other text-to-speech software which will include all this information when announcing the link as a discrete component.
The previous version of the Web Usability Standard only required that a link to a non-HTML file be accompanied by the file’s format and size, not that it include this information in the link itself.
It is a ‘should’ requirement to avoid penalising agencies whose websites previously met this part of the Web Usability Standard. It’s expected that agencies will update links to non-HTML files to meet this new ‘should’ requirement, but there could be valid reasons that delay fixing them.
Printable pages
A web page’s main content must still be printable. However, it is now the main content of the web page ‘in its current state’ that must be printable on A4 paper. Other changes include:
- printed web pages must include at least 1 instance of the mandated organisation’s name or logo
- breadcrumbs have been removed from the list of items that should not be printed
- clarification that it’s the website’s persistent search form, and not just any search form, that should not be printed.
Other consultation feedback
Accessibility statements
Feedback to the Web Standards consultation broadly supported websites having accessibility statements. There were some concerns about the level of detail and the effort involved for agencies with lots of websites.
Accessibility statements must be useful for site visitors to get accessibility help when they need it. Accessibility statements also require maintenance to reflect the site owner’s ongoing improvements to the site’s accessibility and WCAG conformance. In this regard, they serve as conformance statements about the website.
Accessibility statements will be considered as a way for agencies to transparently document and declare how their digital content and services meet accessibility requirements under the new Digital Accessibility Standard.
Suggestions for future training and guidance
Many great suggestions for training and guidance topics were received. Some that stood out and are being considered for the NZ Government Web Accessibility Guide in include:
- accessibility is about more than WCAG conformance – how to test with disabled people
- what managers and product owners need to know, and how to embed accessibility in your organization
- simple WCAG tests anyone can do
- what constitutes reasonable accommodation or disproportionate burden when meeting WCAG
- using te reo Māori on websites
- moving to EPUB3 in place of PDF.
