GIGW 3.0 is the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites, issued by the National Informatics Centre, setting standards for government websites and applications covering accessibility, usability, content quality, security and compliance. It incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA as its accessibility basis.
Compliance is cheap early and expensive late
Accessibility built in from design costs very little — it is largely a matter of semantic markup, sufficient contrast, keyboard operability and sensible form labelling. Retrofitted onto a finished site it means reworking templates, components and content, and the result is usually partial.
There is also a legal dimension. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act requires accessible public information and services, and GIGW is the operative standard for government sites. Treating it as a checkbox before launch produces sites that pass an automated scan and remain unusable with a screen reader.
Process
How we deliver it
Process flow for GIGW 3.0 & accessibility compliance
01
Automated scan
Baseline detection of machine-testable failures.
02
Manual testing
Screen reader and keyboard testing, which scans cannot replace.
03
Assess against GIGW
Accessibility plus content, security and usability criteria.
04
Prioritise remediation
By severity of exclusion, not by ease of fixing.
05
Fix and verify
Remediation, retest, and conformance documentation.
Deliverables
What you receive
GIGW 3.0 conformance audit across all criteria
WCAG 2.1 AA findings with severity ratings
Screen reader and keyboard testing results
Prioritised remediation plan with effort estimates
Post-remediation verification and conformance statement
Engagement shape
Audit as a fixed two to four week engagement; remediation scoped from the findings.
Stack decisions follow the problem. This is where we usually start, not a fixed menu.
Frequently asked
Questions we get about this
Is an automated accessibility scan enough?
No. Automated tools detect a minority of accessibility failures — roughly the machine-testable subset. Whether alternative text is meaningful, whether focus order makes sense, whether a screen reader user can complete the task: these require manual testing. Sites that pass a scan and fail real users are common.
We are procuring a new site. When should accessibility be addressed?
In the tender specification, as a mandatory acceptance criterion with a defined verification method. Specifying it afterwards means paying twice — once for the build and once for remediation the vendor was never contracted to deliver.
Talk it through before you commit
A discovery call is a working session on your constraint, not a sales pitch.
