Hassocks, Keymer and Clayton Neighbourhood Watch - Accessibility

Web Accessibility Initiative

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) requires websites to adhere to the following 14 technical guidelines:

1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content
2. Don't rely on colour alone
3. Use mark-up and style sheets and do so properly
4. Clarify natural language usage
5. Create tables that transform gracefully
6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully
7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes
8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces
9. Design for device-independence
10. Use interim solutions
11. Use W3C technologies and guideline
12. Provide context and orientation information
13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms
14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple

The WAI guidelines define three levels of conformance:

• Level "A":  The site incorporates all the compulsory elements of the WAI guidelines.  This gives basic access to most groups of disabled users
• Level "AA":  The site incorporates all the "should-have" checkpoints.  This brings down all of the significant barriers to users
• Level "AAA":  The site incorporates all the "may-have" checkpoints

This site currently reaches Level "AA"

Text Size

One of the main Accessibility requirements is to increase the web page text size.  In many browsers this is achieved from the "View" menu, ie, View>Text Size.  This option has no effect in some versions of Internet Explorer, instead from the menu bar select Tools>Internet Options and on the General tab click on Accessibility.  Under Formatting check "Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages".  Colours and font style can also be disabled here and a user style sheet specified.

Alternative Style Sheet

This site provides an alternative style sheet.  Using it removes background colours, removes the link underlining, removes italic text where possible and better provides for text enlargement.  To use this in Firefox or Netscape, on the menu bar go to View>Page Style and select: Alternate Style for Accessibility.
Internet Explorer doesn't currently support alternative style sheets.

Web Browser Support for Accessibility

Alternative web browsers to Internet Explorer are available that better support Accessibility.  We recommend Mozilla Firefox, a modern browser which can be downloaded and installed for free.  Many extensions can be added for, eg, page magnification, view a page as text only to aid screen readers and to use an alternative or user style sheet.

Screen Magnification

Screen magnification software can magnify up to 16 times.  Price from around £175 - £600, depending on features such as whether speech support is included.  Products examples include Zoomtext, Lunar, MAGic.

Adobe Acrobat and PDF documents

This site uses Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) as the standard downloadable document format.

Recent versions (v6.0.4, v7) of Adobe Acrobat Reader includes support for screen readers (Accessibility) via the Microsoft Active Access API (MSAA) and enables vision impaired users to read Adobe PDF documents.

PDF documents can be converted into either HTML or ASCII text online by typing the URL of the PDF into an electronic form, the document can then be read by a number of common screen reader programs.  The document will be converted on-the-fly and will be returned immediately to the Web browser.
Adobe Acrobat Accessibility tools

Access Keys

Access keys are keyboard shortcuts which allow the user to navigate a website as an alternative to using a mouse.  The letter or numeral string is usually underlined.

How to use:
For Internet Explorer 5+

• Press and hold the 'Alt' key
• Press the required access key character
• Release the keys and press the 'Enter/Return' key

For Firefox / Netscape Navigator / IE 4-

• Press and hold the 'Alt' key
• Press the required access key character

Opera 9

• Press Shift+Esc to enter access-key mode
• From list select and press required key

Apple Mac based systems:
Press the 'Ctrl' key and the character.

Access keys are not supported by earlier versions of the above web browsers.

The UK Government access key system is used where applicable.  The following access keys are provided:

• 1 - Home Page
• A - About
• N - News
• L - Latest
• R - Reports
• P - Products
• C - Contacts
• K - Links
• S - Seasonal
• D - Datalink
• O - Coordinators
• H - Scheme Start
• B - Bogus
• V - Advice
• E - PC Security
• M - Scams
• I - Watch Out
• Q - What is RSS?
• J - Blog
• 3 - Site Map
• 5 - Privacy Policy
• 8 - Disclaimer
• 0 - Accessibility
• T - Back to top of page
• 9 - Submit form
• 2 - Reset form

Other access keys used on specific pages that have a link to these pages below:

• G - Printing and Download information
• F - Order form (from 'products' page)
• 4 - Print order form (from order form)
• Y - Roads covered
• W - Firework regulations
• X - Rapid Action Teams
• U - Add URL
• Z - Resources

Some relevant websites:
Web Accessibility Initiative
Google language translation service
Watchfire WebXACT

Please the webmaster if you have any suggestions or comments about Accessibility on the Hassocks Neighbourhood Watch website.

Last reviewed October 2006