Technical Overview
Accessibility from Ground Up
We have designed this website so that everybody with all
abilities can access the site and receive the information in a manner that
suits their needs. This has improved the ease of use and usefulness of this
website benefiting everybody.
This website makes use of modern website standards
including:
- Valid
XHTML 1.1
- Valid CSS
- WCAG
1.0 Level ‘AAA’ Accessibility
Although these may appear to be Double-Dutch the three
respectively mean:
- The
pages are written correctly in the prescribed ‘grammar’ for web pages using the XHTML standard version 1.1.
- The
appearance is controlled with a ‘stylesheet’ meaning it can be switched
off (see Help : Turning off Stylesheets) and the content will still be
available and the webpage does not loose any of its content meaning or overall linear flow
- This
page has been manually and electronically checked for AAA accessibility
accreditation. This means our website is rated at the highest level of
accessibility when we looked at the design compared to the WCAG 1.0 AAA
specification and when run through third party accessibility checkers .
The new design is part of Worthing Borough Council’s ongoing
review and update of all of its online content in 2007. It is a new concept
fresh from the drawing board drawing on your feedback as well as the creative
direction of individuals within the council. It has been extensively tested
over a number of months for robustness and suitability for application. We hope
to have most of Worthing Borough Council’s websites using the same concept as
this design here across the board by Autumn 2007.
Accessibility Features
We have integrated a number of features which all users can
benefit from with regards to accessibility, these are:
- Page
Magnification/Shrinking (Flex-Design): All pages on this website and
others from Worthing Borough Council will in the future incorporate page magnification
and shrinking.
This means no only can you increase or decrease the font size in your web
browser as you can with any website, but should you do this you will
notice the whole page enlarges/shrinks including the images, link
boxes and so forth, meaning the design will look just as good whether you
use normal, large or smaller text size. You can read how this works by
reading our Help : Page Magnification/Shrinking guide.
- Legible
Text: Even if you consider yourself to have good eyesight, small text
can cause unnecessary strain on your eyes. By default this website does
not alter or fix any text sizes meaning that this website will be
delivered just as you like it. This links with page magnification and
shrinking because we take notice of what text size you have selected
in your web browser and scale all of the pages to suit your preferences.
- Access
Keys: We are aware some access keys can cause problems with some web
browsers with pre-defined shortcut keys to other functions. We have stuck
to the UK Government’s prescribed access keys for those who use this
facility.
- High
Quality Printing: All pages you print from our website will be
optimised without user intervention for the best quality printing using
legible 12pt text. The areas you don’t want to print such as the
navigation links are not printed. You do not need to select areas for
printing with this website.
- Design
is Design and Content is Content: Ten years ago website content was so
tangled up with the physical appearance that poor quality printouts were
common and the meaning of content was lost for those with accessibility
requirements. Some websites still flaunt this golden rule, we don’t. This
means you can switch off the stylesheet (Help : Turning off Stylesheets)
and still see the content without its meaning being lost. Read more in our
technical details section.
- All
Platforms, All Web Browsers: We have tested this website on all
computers from the commonplace Windows PC, to the Apple Macintosh to
obscure platforms you may not have heard of. We have also tested our
website with many web browsers from those that are text only to the latest
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. The simple fact is that this website works
no matter what you are using. There are web browsers this site will look
its best in but the chances are according to our independent statistics
that 99% of you will enjoy this website at its very best. Read more in our
technical details section.
Why make the changes?
There two primary reasons for this change. Firstly, Central
Government lays down guidelines that local councils should follow and also with
the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), all websites should be made accessible
to all individuals without discrimination of an individual’s ability. The
second reason is because we want to make our websites as good as they can be
for our town.
