Accessibility audit and solutions for Inland Revenue
Catalyst gave IR the compliance data needed to have conversations on how best to improve their myIR service, making it easier for New Zealanders to pay their taxes and receive their entitlements.
Background
Inland Revenue is the New Zealand government department that collects tax revenue and administers a number of social support programmes. Inland Revenue wanted to do an accessibility audit on the myIR portion of its website, as it was doing a user experience redevelopment of that section.
MyIR is Inland Revenue’s secure online services facility, and people can use it for tasks such as:
checking personal tax information
filing tax returns
applying for payments.
For the redevelopment of myIR, Inland Revenue considered how different people interact with their system, particularly vulnerable groups, such as people with low literacy rates. Accessibility in all forms was important - not just WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), but also usability.
In consultation with Catalyst’s expert UX and Accessibility teams, IR decided to do both a UX audit and an accessibility audit to WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. Government websites are required to comply with WCAG standards.
Accessibility is integral for providing users with a robust, complete, and usable web experience. It is essential that all users, regardless of their environmental or physical situations, can access the online services provided by government agencies.
In New Zealand, an estimated 17 percent were disabled in 2023, not including undiagnosed disabilities. Moreover, it is expensive to be inaccessible: users who can’t access web content end up contacting organisations through phone, email or in person, which is the more expensive alternative.
Opportunity
MyIR is an older legacy system that has had different developers working on it and implementing changes over the last six years. Usually, we can look at components that get repeated and elements that are the same across multiple pages, such as the navigation bar. We couldn’t make that assumption about this project because it was built over such a long period by different people. Therefore, the audit became a big project as there were no shortcuts.
Inland Revenue identified different aspects important to them and gave Catalyst four user personasto consider while conducting the audits. For example, a business owner who wants their assistant to be able to file their tax returns. Or someone who wants to add a family member to their record, such as a child or a spouse. The website audit involved dashboard pages as well as processes. For instance, filling out forms and receiving confirmation of the task.
Solution
At Catalyst, our accessibility offerings are informed by WCAG 2.1 AA standards as well as expertise in key business roles. Catalyst’s accessibility team measured each page on the website against the WCAG 2.1 AA standards and each user persona. For each flow, there were 13 – 20 pages to examine, times four. We drip-fed results to IR as they were produced to keep them up to date throughout the project via weekly meetings that fostered a good relationship between Catalyst and IR.
At the end of the project, Catalyst did a presentation and had a positive conversation with Inland Revenue. They knew there were usability issues but didn’t necessarily know the accessibility issues that were present.
Actionable results with the audit
In the accessibility audit, we highlighted five themes that we found issues with. For each theme, we discussed:
the issues
provided examples
suggested solutions.
A key part of Catalyst’s audit services is we don’t just identify problems - we provide a list of solutions.
The report we presented gave the IR team concrete numbers to validate areas they sensed were wrong. Catalyst gave them the compliance data needed to have internal conversations on how best to develop and improve their myIR service, making it easier for New Zealanders to pay their taxes and receive their entitlements.
Need web accessibility support?
As of 17 March 2025, the NZ Government Web Standards have been updated so government organisations must comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.
Whether you need a free consultation, an audit, or to develop a roadmap, our web accessibility experts are happy to help. Book a free consultation.
