Accessibility

Introduction

Medicare Australia has adopted the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0.

By following these guidelines, Medicare Australia will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities: including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and any combination of these. Following these guidelines will also often make content more usable to users in general.

The Medicare Australia website has been designed for use on a range of web browsers and operating systems. We have outlined some accessibility techniques for commonly-used browsers and operating systems below. We strongly encourage you to use the latest version of your manufacturer's browser wherever and whenever possible, as newer browsers will have better support for accessibility functions.

If your browser, device or operating system is not listed here, please contact the manufacturer directly for detailed instructions on enabling their product's accessibility features.

Inclusion of specific browsers or tools does not imply endorsement.

How do I make the text smaller / larger?

There are several ways to change the text size on the Medicare Australia website.

For your entire operating system:

• Changing text size in Windows XP (Microsoft)
• Changing text size in Mac OS (Apple)

For your web browser only:

• Changing text size in Internet Explorer (Microsoft)
• Changing text size in Chrome (Google)
• Changing text size in Firefox (Mozilla)
• Changing text size in Safari (Apple)

The site does not fit on my screen – can I still use it?

Yes. The Medicare Australia website has been designed to scale between some of the most commonly-used screen widths. On a normal desktop browser, the site will 'shrink' to fit in a 800px-wide screen. Screens narrower than 800px may need to scroll horizontally to see some portions of the site.

I'm on a slow connection – how can I make the site load faster?

If you are not on a broadband connection, you can increase the perceived speed of the site by modifying your web browser to prevent it from downloading 'extra' information from our site. The Medicare Australia website will still function adequately when the following technologies are disabled:

• Background Images
• Inline Images
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• JavaScript

Why do pages look different when I print them out?

When printing from the Medicare Australia website, we attempt to provide a print-optimised version of the page, removing navigation, background colours and images, resulting in a page that will be suitable even for a wide range of printers.

I use my browser with Javascript disabled – can I still use the site?

Yes. While the Medicare Australia website expects Javascript to be present, we understand that some users choose to disable Javascript for privacy and security reasons. With JavaScript disabled some portions of the site will look and operate differently, but core functions of the site should continue to work. Please contact us if you experience any issues while using the website.

I don't use a mouse – can I still use the site?

Yes. The Medicare Australia website is entirely operable solely by a keyboard. We do not use access keys or a modified tab order for the site.

I am not a native English speaker – how can I get a translation of the site?

Medicare Australia provides an information kit in 19 different languages, which has information about our main health programs, including Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)..

The Australian Government also provides a Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) for people who do not speak English. A non-English speaker does not pay for TIS services if contacting a government service or agency.

To use the telephone interpreting service:

1. Phone 131 450 from anywhere in Australia
2. Tell the Operator the language you speak
3. Tell the Operator the telephone number of the person or organisation you wish to speak to

Telephone interpreting is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For further information on the TIS, please refer to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship website.

I don't understand some of the words or phrases on this site – who can help me understand?

If you are having trouble with the words used on this site, please contact us with your question directly.

Advice on Downloading Files

Some documents on the Medicare Australia website are made available as files for downloading instead of (or as well as) being made available as web pages. This page explains the reasons for the various formats and provides advice and links to free software for viewing the various file formats.

The following formats are used on this site:

Microsoft Word (DOC)

This format is useful if you want to edit files after downloading them.

Rich Text Format (RTF)

Like Word files, RTF files are used where you may want to edit the document. Most word processing programs can open RTF files, however if necessary you can use the free Word Viewer program to view these files. RTF files are typically larger than the same file in Word format.

Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)

This format is used where it is desirable to preserve the formatting and pagination of a document, eg for legal documents.

Tips on downloading files 

The exact procedure for downloading a file will depend on what browser you are using and what add-in programs are already installed with your browser. Try clicking on the download link first and if a dialogue box is displayed choose the Save option. If clicking on a link starts a process which displays the file in your browser rather than download it, try holding down the {Shift} or {Ctrl} key while clicking on the link, or try using the right mouse button when selecting the link. In Internet Explorer try clicking on the link with the right mouse button and selecting Save Target As.

Programs for viewing downloaded files

If your computer does not already support the above file types use the following links to download and install free viewing software. You should only need to do this once.

To view PDF files, download and install the free Acrobat Reader program

To view Word or RTF files, download and install the free Word Viewer program

Last updated: 1 September, 2010