Accessibility Criteria in Web Design - Case National Agency for Education

BACKGROUND

Procurer

National Agency for Education, Finland

Object of procurement

Implementation of a website management and publishing system, user interface design, web design, implementation and further development of online services, and maintenance.

Value of procurement

€372,800

Objective of procurement

The objective of this procurement was to renew three websites in a way that supported the goals and tasks of a modern education agency and provided a good user experience. 

Parties and operators participating in procurement

  • Contracting authority: Finnish National Agency for Education
  • Contracted service provider: Wunder Finland Oy
  • Users were taken into account by cooperating with the digitalisation support team of the Finnish State Treasury to implement a customer insight phase. Three customer workshops followed by interviews provided the base for the first design sprint. The affected users of the renewed websites are expected to have improved accessibility as a result.

Procurement – background

The Finnish National Agency for Education is responsible for early childhood education and care, pre-primary, basic, general and vocational upper secondary education as well as for adult education and training. It also manages much of the internationalisation of studies in Finland, for example student and teacher exchange programmes. The Agency needed to renew three websites, and wished to do so in a way that supported the goals and tasks of a modern education agency and provided a good user experience.

A contract was awarded in 2018 for web design and development of online services. In order to ensure the accessibility of these services to all users, the Board of Education specified that they must meet the accessibility requirements of EN 301 549 or equivalent.

Read the full case description from “Making socially responsible public procurement work - 71 good practice cases(link is external)” on pages 153-155 published by the European Commission.

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