Page 71 - GIGW2

Guidelines

for Indian Government Apps & Websites

5.6.4 When the sequence in which content is presented affects its meaning, a correct
reading sequence MUST be programmatically determined. This helps people
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who rely on assistive technologies like screen readers because the meaning evident
in the sequencing of the information in the visual presentation will be the same
when the content is presented in spoken form. This also preserves the meaning
of the page when the CSS is turned off or not supported. It should be noted
that a sequence is meaningful if change of order shall impact its meaning. Two
independent content items like two separate articles in a page may be placed in
any sequence without affecting the meaning. Similarly the navigation block and
the content area may be placed in any sequence without affecting their meaning.
(Ref. WCAG 1.3.2)

5.7
Multilingual Versions

India is a country with diverse cultures and as many as 22 languages. One of the major
users of Government websites are common citizens with highly diverse demographic
profiles. Due to the various initiatives taken by Centre and State Governments, as well as
the private sector, Internet is now accessible even in the remote parts of the nation.

At present, a majority of the content in Government websites is in English, except few
which have content in Hindi or one of the Regional languages. Thus, even though
Government websites are accessible, they are still not usable. Hence, there is a need to
put the information in Regional languages. Depending on the nature of the content and
its prospective usage, content should be translated in desired languages and should be a
part of the same website with prominent links. Technology for publishing the content in
Indian languages is already quite developed and a large number of tools are available to
support this.

5.7.1 Ideally all the pages on the website should be translated in Hindi or other Regional
languages. In case it is becoming difficult to do so, Departments MUST identify the
content which is widely accessed by the public and begin to put up such content in
multiple languages. The web pages MUST use Unicode character set.

5.7.2 It MUST be ensured that the documents/pages in multiple languages are updated
simultaneously so that there are no inconsistencies, at any point, between the various
language versions. Prominent link to the bilingual version must be provided.

5.7.3 In case it is practically difficult to update the versions in all languages simultaneously
due to delays on account of translation etc., the obsolete information should be
removed from the site till the latest information is uploaded. In any case, a time
stamp indicating the date of uploading the information and its validity should be
put along with all the time sensitive documents.

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