We want the Suffolk Coastal website and its content to be
accessible to as many people as possible. For the benefit of all
visitors to our site we strive to present information in a clear,
easy-to-understand way, with clear and consistent navigation to
make it it easy for you to find your way around. Our website has
also been designed to comply with international guidelines for
making web content accessible to people with disabilities.
Making text larger or smaller
It is very easy to make the text on our webpages larger or
smaller to suit your preferences. We have provided a simple
one-click facility for making the text one size larger or smaller -
just select the 'Text size' links under the search icon
at the top the page.
All popular browsers let you increase or decrease the size of
the text on a webpage providing the website you are looking
at has been built to allow this to happen. Internet Explorer 7
& 8, Firefox and Opera browsers all have a page zoom facility
which enlarges or reduces the whole page, including images as well
as text.
Instructions on how to make text larger or smaller for all
popular browsers are available on the
My Web, My Way website (new window) created
by AbilityNet. This site also has information about how you can
make your software, keyboard and mouse and web browser better
suit your needs.
Listening to the text on our webpages
We have provided a very simple facility that lets you have the
text on our webpages read out to you. Just click on the 'Listen to
the text on this page' link which you will find underneath the
title of the page. If you wish you can also save the text on the
page as an MP3 audio file.
Using plain language
We are committed to using plain
language throughout our website at
www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk and strive to
consistently present information in a clear and
easy-to-understand way.
In 2008 and 2009 our website was reviewed by the
Plain
English Campaign (new window) and awarded their Internet
Crystal Mark.
As our website is constantly changing, there may be occasions
when we do not meet the standards we strive to meet. For the
benefit of visitors to our website we often publish information
from other organisations where we have no influence over the use of
language, and like many other councils we make use of a number of
third party applications which we cannot easily make changes to.
However, if you have difficulty understanding any part of our
website, please let us know by emailing
website@suffolkcoastal.gov.uk,
and we will take steps to improve it.
PDF files and accessibility
We create Portable Document Format (PDF) files to make
documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc, available via the web
in a format that produces small file sizes and is accessible to a
wide range of people using the free
Adobe Reader software (new window). We also
publish a number of PDF documents produced by other organisations.
Consequently, we have a large number of PDF documents on our
website.
We believe PDF is a very valuable tool for making all kinds of
documents available via the web but we are aware of the
accessibility issues to do with PDF documents. As part of our
editorial process we review all documents that are to be published
on the website and decide on the best way of presenting the
information. In some cases we will create web pages as well as
publishing a PDF file to make sure the information contained in the
document is as accessible as possible.
In other cases we might produce a summary of the content of a
PDF document on a webpage or, at the very least, we will try and
indicate the content or purpose of a PDF document in a line or two
of explanation with the link text. When we create PDF documents
ourselves we always try to create 'tagged' files, which work better
with assistive technology.
The latest version of Adobe Reader contains many features
specifically designed to make it easier for people with
disabilities to read PDF files, regardless of whether the files
have been optimised for accessibility. Follow this link to find out
more about
Adobe Reader and accessibility (new window) and
accessing PDF documents with assistive technology.
Links to other pages, documents and other websites
Links work in the same way on every page of our website:
- All links to external websites open in a new browser
window.
- All internal links display in the same browser window.
- All links to documents open in new window and we tell you the
file format and size in the link text.
Follow this link for help with opening and downloading documents.
We provide links to external sites in order to give visitors to
our site related information from what we believe to be reputable
sources. However, we not responsible for the content of external
internet sites so we cannot guarantee the accuracy or accessibility
of their content.
Making your computer and the web easier to use
AbilityNet's My Computer, My Way website will guide you through
how you can make your computer, software, keyboard and mouse and
web browser better suited your needs:
Conforming to web accessibility guidelines
In accordance with UK government requirements our website has
been built to conform to level AA of the World Wide Web
Consortium's (WC3) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (new
window). The W3C guidelines explain how to make website content
accessible to people with disabilities.
All of the webpages published at
www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk have been tested using a
variety of accessibility validation tools and pass automated tests
for level AA conformance.
In order to meet the requirements of level AA all pages
published at www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk validate
against the international standards for Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) and Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML 1.0)
maintained by the W3C. You can test any page by clicking on the W3C
validator links at the bottom of every page.
In November 2007 we asked
the Shaw Trust Web Accreditation team (new window)
to carry out an accessibility audit on our website. The audit
comprised of a manual technical audit using automated tools and
testing by a team of user testers with differing disabilities using
a range of adaptive technologies. The results of the audit showed
that the accessibility of our website is good from both technical
and usability standpoints.
We try to ensure that our website is 100% compliant all of the
time but as it is constantly changing we cannot guarantee that it
will always be so. Please let us know if you encounter a problem
with any of our pages by emailing
website@suffolkcoastal.gov.uk
Some of our pages still link to old web content that was
produced before the W3C guidelines were widely acknowledged as the
standard for accessible websites. This content does not meet all
the requirements of the guidelines and is being phased out or
deleted as it becomes obsolete.