Accessibility Policy
Commitment to Accessibility
The Council is committed to making its website as accessible as possible to users with disabilities, including users who may be blind, partially sighted, or have a physical disability. The design of our website includes a number of accessibility features including:
- Resizable text
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Images and alt tags
- Coding standards and use of cascading style sheets
- Report an accessibility problem
Resizable text
A common design throughout rather than providing text only pages for disabled users, and allowing text sizes to be changed to suit the users needs. We have been careful to make sure that we have not fixed the size of the textual information on the website so that visitors who wish to can alter the font size on the screen to make it easier to read.
There are a number of ways to change the text size in your browser, the easiest way is to follow the following steps:
(In Internet Explorer)- Select the 'View' menu.
- Select the 'Text Size' option from the menu.
- Click on the text size you want to view.
- Select the 'View' menu.
- Select the 'Increase Font' option from the menu.
- Click on the text size you want to view.
- Select the 'View' menu.
- Select the 'Text Size' option from the menu.
- Click on the text size you want to view.
Using your mouse scroll wheel to increase (or decrease) the size of text
It is also possible to increase the size of the text by holding down the ctrl key on the bottom left hand row of the key board whilst using the scroll wheel on the mouse to increase (or decrease) the size of the text.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts control various browser functions and are often a useful and quick way of navigating through a site.
For the vast majority of browsers, use your Tab key to navigate forward through links (use Shift + Tab to go backwards), and Enter to activate the link.
Many other keys can be used, and will vary depending on the browser and operating system you are using. To find the shortcuts for your browser, follow these steps if your computer is running Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator on Windows:
- Internet Explorer - Press your F1 key to open the online help and in the index, type "keyboard shortcuts", select the required option and click "display".
- Netscape Navigator - Press your F1 key to open the online help and in the index, type "keyboard".
- Firefox -Mozilla - Press your F1 key to open the online help and in the index, select "keyboard Shortcuts".
Images and alt tags
We have avoided using excessive graphics within the website where possible to ensure quick download times and access to information which cannot be read if in image format.
Where images have been used we have added 'Alt' tags - text alternatives so that you will still know what the image is meant to convey even if it does not load or if you've have chosen to browse with the images switched off or you are using an assistive technology like a screen reader to browse the webpage rather than view.
Coding standards and the use of Cascading style sheets
This website is built using code compliant with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. W3C is the governing authority on web development standards and practices. Our website has been designed to be as accessible to as many users as possible, and has been developed using Cascading Style Sheets.
We strictly avoid the use of framesets throughout the main council website.
The site displays correctly with current browsers, and using standard XHTML code means that any future browsers will also display this website correctly.
We are continuously improving this website to ensure that pages conform to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. The Accessibility Guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance to these Guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users.
Mapping System
The Council strives to meet the needs of computer users with visual impairment or other conditions that limit accessibility. Due to the graphics-intensive nature of the mapping part of the site, the geographic information cannot be presented in an accessible format.
There may be a few pages that do not conform to all the guidelines. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the whole site conforms, with so many contributors, this is an ongoing process.
Report an accessibility problem
We are constantly working to improve the accessibility features of www.barnet.gov.uk and really would welcome your suggestions and comments. We will be undertaking a further review of this site to introduce more measures and features to improve its accessibility standards.
If you encounter an accessibility or technical problem with any page on this site, please e-mail the corporate web team at webmaster@barnet.gov.uk .
