Accessibility

Wirral Council is committed to providing engaging, interesting and informative websites for Wirral’s citizens, businesses and visitors including those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments.

What is Web Accessibility?

In recent years, the term for disabled access or accessibility is being increasingly used to describe how someone with a disability interacts with a website.

The needs that Web accessibility aims to address include:

Visual: Visual impairments including blindness, various common types of low vision and poor eyesight, various types of colour blindness;
Motor/Mobility: for example difficulty or inability to use the hands, including tremors, muscle slowness and loss of fine muscle control due to conditions such as Parkinson's Disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy or stroke;
Hearing: Deafness or hearing impairments, including individuals who are hard of hearing;
Seizures: Photoepileptic seizures caused by visual strobe or flashing effects;
Cognitive/Intellectual: Developmental disabilities, learning disabilities (dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc.), and cognitive disabilities of various origins, affecting memory, attention, developmental "maturity," problem-solving and logic skills.

When websites are correctly built and maintained using recognised standards, all of these users needs can be accommodated with little or no impact on the usability of the site for non-disabled users.

Resizable text

The site uses Cascading Style Sheets to style the text and this text has been configured to be resizable using the browsers resize settings. The text has been left justified, this maintains a consistent gap between words, this helps both users with mild visual impairments as well those who are using screen readers and/or magnification software as both pieces of software struggle to interpret the inconsistent gaps. Learn how to resize text and other handy functions.

Alt Tags

All pictures and images within the site will be tagged with alternative text in a contextual format to describe the content of a picture. This is useful for text-based browsers or for users with visual impairments as it enables the picture to be described in words.

Contrast

We are working towards a site style that incorporates a strong contrast between background and foreground colours (specifically for text) for readability and clarity purposes.

Tabbed Fields

We endeavour to ensure that all fields in online forms can be navigated by pressing 'Tab' on a keyboard. This is particularly meaningful to users that cannot use a pointer device such as the mouse, whether this is for mobility reasons or for visual impairments.

No flickering animation

We have avoided the use of flickering, strobing or flashing animation which could be harmful to users who are susceptible to photo epileptic seizures.

Coding to Standards

This site has been built using code and technique’s that are compliant with W3C standards for XHTML and Cascading style sheets. Whilst we strive to ensure that all pages remain compliant, this is a large site, with large amounts of data being uploaded on a daily basis. We must acknowledge that some pages will occasionally fail the compliancy tests, such pages will be investigated, recoded and rechecked. If you find any pages that you believe may contain errors please tell us using the feedback button on the top right of this page.

Future Developments

With accessibility and service improvement in mind, the site is currently undergoing extensive developments to encourage all our customers to interact with us via the Web. We are working with the Shaw Trust to ensure that this website is accessible to all users.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accessibility

Point

Point is an online tool that uses Widgit Symbols to help visitors to your website understand the written content better.

Point helps people learning to read, people with English as an Additional Language (EAL) or individuals with reading difficulties. Point acts as a useful prompt for anyone reading new or unfamiliar words, giving reinforcement of word meaning and building confidence.

Point user information

Point is controlled using the on/off button.

To use Point, first turn the service on, then hover your mouse pointer over a word onscreen. A Widgit Symbol or Symbols will appear to help you to understand the meaning of the chosen word.

More information

Widgit are the creators of the Widgit Symbol Set, a collection of symbols supporting over 40,000 words. Each carefully and simply drawn symbol provides a visual representation of the word it is linked to, giving access to non or emerging readers.