Accessibility
The accessibility of our website is a subject we take very seriously. It is important that our visitors do not run up against obstacles when trying to access our information and services, regardless of personal circumstances. To help us achieve this, we have included a variety of features:
- Change your viewing options
- Browsealoud - speech enabled website
- Navigating the site without a mouse
- Alternative Text
- Skip to Content
- Information in other languages
- Plugins required to view parts of the website
- Public Access Machines
- Reporting an Accessibility problem to us
- Code Standards
- Useful Website Links
Change Your Viewing Options
You can use our viewing options page to easily change our site to meet your needs. You can change the text size; change the site's colour scheme; and use Browsealoud to listen to our site being read aloud.
Browsealoud - Speech Enabled Website
Browsealoud is an online screen reader to help the visually impaired. The software will read the text on screen and speak the words to you. Find out how you can use the Browsealoud screen reader.
Once you have installed the software, you can listen to any website offering the Browsealoud service.
Navigating the site without a mouse
For those who experience difficulties using a mouse or other pointing device, navigating our website using other means is very important.
To help with this, we have set up 'Access Keys' to allow easy navigation to the main sections of our website. We have used the standard UK Government Access Keys, these are:
- S. Skip to Content
- 0. Accessibility Information
- 1. Home Page
- 2. Not in use
- 3. Site Map
- 4. Search
- 5. Not in use
- 6. Help
- 7. Not in use
- 8. Privacy Policy
- 9. Contact Us
You are accessing our website using Default Browser 0 on a unknown computer. To use access keys on this web browser please check the help pages for the browser.
Alternative Text
Any graphics used on our site will include meaningful alternative text (often known as 'alt' text). This means that when an image is used on a web page to communicate information, it's content will be described in the alt text. By doing this, if you have chosen to browse our site with the images switched off, or are using a screen reader, the image can still be understood.
Skip to Content
At the top of our site you will find a link to 'Skip to Content'. Clicking this link will automatically move you down the page to below the site header and navigation. This means, that if you use a screen reader, you can click this link and not have to listen to all the links at the top of the site being read out.
Information in other languages
For information, advice, guidance and learning materials in community languages visit the MultiKulti website.
Basic free text translation services are also available from the Altavista and Google websites.
Plugins required to view parts of the website
Certain parts of our website require you to use special software called 'plugins' so that you can view information. You may already have this special software installed onto your computer, but if you don't then you can download viewing software for them here:
Public Access
The accessibility of our site is no just a case of making changes to the website itself, but making our site available to residents who do not have a computer or internet connection at home.
Our website, along with free internet access is available in all our local libraries. All of our libraries have disabled access.
Reporting an Accessibility problem to us
Whilst every effort has been made to make our site as accessible as possible, there may be occasional pages that do not conform to all the guidelines.
We are committed to addressing any access issues promptly, and that's where we need your help. If you experience any difficulties using our site, please let us know by sending an email to the Web Development Team
Code Standards
Our whole website conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 "Double A" level set out by the World Wide Web Consortium. The W3C set out global standards for web systems and compliancy to web standards. The WCAG is a set of strict rules that websites should conform to for accessibility of content. Our website conforms to their AA rating.
Our website uses Strict XHTML 1.0 in all of it's pages. Stating this logo on our website means that we are declaring the XHTML code in our pages is 100% correct as tested against the W3C's validation system. This means that we can be sure that the website will behave as we expect irrespective or which web browser software you use.
Our website has a rating (known as a 'PICS label') from the Internet Content Rating Association. This rating system allows us to declare the type of content that our website provides so that special parental control software can categorise and filter our website accordingly.
Useful Website Links
