Accessibility

The Our Warwickshire website is designed for accessible use.  Below we describe the ways in which we have tried to make the site accessible and how you can adapt the site to fit your needs.

We have also provided an accessibility ‘how to’ guide for adjusting your view of the website in Chrome.

Web standards

The site conforms to W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v2.0 Level AA and implements most recommendations at AAA levels.

Our Warwickshire project is a user-led website. It is constantly growing because of contributions from the public. Our editors follow a set of accessibility standards to make this content as accessible as possible, while trying not to over-edit or delay publication of material from our contributors.

Browsers

This website has been tested on the most up to date versions of the desktop browsers that are in common use:

  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Internet Explorer
  • Safari
  • Opera

The site will also adjust its display for mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

Customising your browser to increase accessibility

Most browsers provide several ‘add ons’ or extensions which increase accessibility. These include ‘add ons’ for text to speech, fonts for dyslexia and increasing or decreasing  contrast. See our list of ‘add ons’ for Chrome you might find useful.

For general guides on setting up accessibility options on your computer see:

Better Web Browsing: Tips for Customizing Your Computer
https://www.w3.org/WAI/users/browsing

Ability Net
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk
The My Computer My Way web pages provided by AbilityNet contain guidance on how you can make your computer easier to use.

BBC My Web My Way
http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/
My Web, My Way offers information to help get the most out of the accessibility features on your computer.

Navigation

You should be able to reach all parts of the website by following links that can be navigated from your keyboard.   All links will open in your current browser window unless specified.

The following keyboard short cuts are available:

S = Skip to main content
0 = Accessibility (this page)
1 = Home
2 = What’s new
4 = Search
6 = Help
8 = Terms of use
9 = Contact us
T = Browse by topic or subject
L = Browse by location
P = Browse by time period
G = Local groups
E = Events

Zooming

You can magnify your view of the entire site using the zoom settings in your browser. See our ‘how to’ guide on zooming your view of the site in Chrome.

Changing the size and font of the text

The website is designed so you can just change the size of the text instead of zooming the full display.  See our ‘how to’ guide for changing the text size in Chrome and displaying a dyslexic font in Chrome.

Text to Speech

There are a variety of ‘text to speech’ tools which can be used on this site, some free and some purchased.  See our ‘how to’ guide for free Chrome ‘text to speech’ add-ons you can use on this site.

Contrast

The colours for this website have been chosen to provide a level of contrast between the background colour and text that meets W3C Web Content Accessibility Guides v2.0 Triple AA. If you need to adjust the contrast further, see our ‘how to’ guide for using Chrome Accessibility extensions. These include an extension to support people with colour blindness and an extension for adjusting background colour.

Images

Alternative text is provided for images and can be read out using screen-reading software.