Lam Wai Kau government CIO Hong Kong the need for a smart city to make things easier for citizens.
Affected by the epidemic, various industries have been actively accelerating digital transformation, hoping to enhance competitiveness and turn crises into opportunities.
Many traditional industries have adopted online business, digital payment, and online customer service management to actively explore new business opportunities. On the other hand, citizens rely more on the Internet to handle their daily needs during the epidemic.
Activities such as online shopping, online ordering and browsing online news have become the “new normal” for many citizens to stay home to fight the epidemic. For those in need, the use of barrier-free design for websites and mobile applications has also become extremely important.
In recent years, the SAR government has actively promoted the development of smart cities. In the “Hong Kong Smart City Blueprint 2.0” announced at the end of last year, more than 130 smart city measures were proposed, with the goal of making it convenient for the people.
We also launched the “Smart Convenience” one-stop personalised service platform at the end of last year to facilitate the public to use various public services through the platform, such as vehicle license renewal, electronic tax filing, job-seekers registration, and public institutions (such as electricity and gas). Online services provided by companies), banks and other commercial institutions.
While optimising electronic public services, we also pay special attention to the need to develop online accessibility. At present, all government websites have met the AA-level standards of version 2.0 or 2.1 of the “Guidelines for Web Accessible Content” issued by the World Wide Web Consortium.
In response to the anti-epidemic and anti-epidemic work, our online services will also be tested for web accessibility in order to achieve the AA level standard. In fact, the promotion of online accessibility cannot rely solely on the government’s efforts. All sectors of society can respond and actively participate in order to achieve successful results.
In order to encourage more public and private organisations to adopt accessibility web design, we are consulting different organisations of persons with disabilities regarding the drafting of basic accessibility requirements for websites/mobile applications, and will publish basic accessibility requirements and design guidelines within this year.
Make barrier-free design a basic principle in the production of websites and mobile applications. The purpose is to allow people with different needs to browse the web and use online services without any obstacles.
