Making content accessible for CALD communities

This article shares our insights for better reaching and engaging with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities on nsw.gov.au to ensure their access to essential government information and services. 

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities in NSW

NSW is Australia’s most diverse state both culturally and linguistically. Over half of the NSW population are first or second-generation migrants (4 million). More than 1 in 4 people speak a language other than English at home in NSW, of which 362,000 are not proficient in English. If NSW were a country, it would be the 10th most linguistically diverse country globally, with around 274 languages spoken (ABS Census 2021).

Traditional web content and communications do not always meet the diverse needs of these communities. Failing to do so could result in a significant portion of NSW people being unable to access essential information and services from the government.

Research into the needs of CALD communities

The insights shared in this article were learnt from:

• our research with NSW CALD communities
• insights from nsw.gov.au Google Analytics
• experience communicating with these communities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, floods and bushfires events
• testing various solutions for translation of web content.

People at risk of exclusion

From our research with NSW CALD communities, we have identified 4 factors that can make someone at risk of being excluded from accessing government information online. They are:

1. low English proficiency (this includes speaking, reading, writing)
2. low digital literacy (this includes ability, access, and affordability)
3. low proficiency in their first language (literacy in their mother tongue)
4. being socially isolated.

Broadly, the personas that face the most risk of exclusion include elderly first-generation migrants, recent migrants (including refugees and asylum seekers), international students, people with disability and people with mental illness.

How we support accessibility on nsw.gov.au

The nsw.gov.au team is committed to providing a website that is accessible to everyone, regardless of background, technology, or ability. We deliver this by ensuring all information is findable, comprehendible, usable, and sharable. This includes:

• Offering machine translation into 65 languages on almost all nsw.gov.au pages.
• Host in-language resources in 64 languages translated by NAATI-certified translators, including videos, PDFs, infographics, and social tiles.
• Support text-to-audio playback option via ReadSpeaker for users who understand English verbally but have low reading literacy.
• Share the Translating and Interpreting (TIS) phone service.
• Enable the easy sharing of information on nsw.gov.au with others.
• Aim to meet level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
• Content is written as clearly and concisely as possible to support comprehension, aiming for a reading level of grade 8-9 (14 years of age).
• Monitor and benchmark our accessibility regularly using Siteimprove.
• Accessibility in considered throughout the design and development process by designers, quality assurance specialists, and developers.

Find out how we make nsw.gov.au accessible.

How we are improving accessibility on nsw.gov.au

Several opportunities for improvement have been identified to enhance the accessibility of nsw.gov.au for CALD communities. You will see these rolled over to nsw.gov.au progressively. These include:

• Implementing a scalable hybrid translation solution that offers both machine and human translation of content across nsw.gov.au.
• Human translation solutions for languages that are not supported for machine translation by Google Translate, such as Assyrian and Chaldean.
• Improving the user experience for accessing translated resources on nsw.gov.au.
• Further localise the displaying of content particularly for right-to-left languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew.
• Optimising nsw.gov.au for multilingual SEO (in-language keywords) to ensure content is findable by CALD communities.
• Greater use of iconography and multimedia resources across nsw.gov.au to aid the navigation and comprehension of information.
• Greater use of personalisation to direct users to relevant in-language content. This would mean detecting different browser language and prompting the user to change the page language to their device’s language.

New personalisation for CALD Communities

When a user’s browser language is set to non-English, we prompt them to read our site in that language. For example, if the user usually browses sites in Spanish, then its primary language must be set as Spanish and Adobe Target will prompt that user with below prompt in Spanish.

The user can choose to:

• switch and read the site in Spanish (Traducir al espanol), or
• ignore this by clicking on the do not translate CTA (No traducir) or by exiting the prompt (X).

This personalisation helps non-English speaking users to browse our content properly.

Every month more than fifty thousand visitors to nsw.gov.au have languages other than English as the primary language on their browser. This personalisation will target these users and provide them with the opportunity to choose the language they view our content in.

Currently, the personalisation is available for the following ten languages:

• Chinese
• Korean
• French
• Vietnamese
• Japanese
• German
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Polish
• Italian

How you can improve the CALD accessibility of your content

Agencies can improve the accessibility of their content for CALD Communities by following these best practice guidelines:

• Write information in plain language which is more accessible for all and can lead to higher quality, faster and cheaper translation. More information on writing in plain language.
• Understand who your audience is and tailor your message accordingly. There is no singular CALD audience, they are diverse and nuanced. Use research and data to inform your audience and language selection. A good starting point is using the ABS Census to identify those languages with the largest population of people who have low proficiency in English.
• Make information available in the places and platforms that your audience visits. Relying only on nsw.gov.au may be insufficient to reach and engage with your audience. For example, consider supporting your message with in-language radio, news, or print.
• Use audio visual elements and formats (such as images, icons and videos) to improve access to and comprehension of information.
• Ensure information is in a sharable format, so information can be shared through CALD communities.
• Use a mobile first approach as mobile is the preferred device among CALD communities when accessing nsw.gov.au (60% of in-language users accessed nsw.gov.au via mobile in 2023).
• Make information available in both online and offline formats to ensure those with low digital literacy or digital access can still find information. For example a web page with a print to PDF button.

When translating information, you should:

• Plan and define glossary terms, stylistic preferences, and translation quality metrics before translations are implemented, such as, addresses, numbers and punctuation.
• Understand there is no one size fits all. Agencies can benefit from different translation options: machine, hybrid, or human translation. Each have their benefits and risks.
• Ensure translators are certified for quality, including NAATI Certification System, ISO 17100 and ISO 18587 certifications.
• Understand translations require additional adjustments and localisation to specific languages and cultures. For example, adjusting content for text direction (right-to-left languages) and for text expansion or contraction (some languages are more or less ‘wordy’ than English).

CALD Accessibility Guidance Tool

To help content contributors on nsw.gov.au understand how to best reach and engage with CALD communities we have developed the CALD Accessibility Guidance Tool. The tool uses insights from our CALD research and data from the ABS Census, nsw.gov.au Google Analytics and other sources to provide recommendations around:

• the estimated reach of translated content
• the characteristics of those currently accessing nsw.gov.au
• the groups at risk of exclusion.

More information on digital accessibility

To learn more about digital accessibility, visit the NSW Government Digital Accessibility and Inclusion Toolkit

Need any more help?

If you have any questions, or require assistance with anything mentioned on this article, submit a request via the webform.