Accessibility statement
East Renfrewshire Council is committed to producing websites and web resources that can be accessed by all users.
We are working hard to ensure that all pages produced on the East Renfrewshire Council online service will conform to the AA standard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines produced by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
What is an accessible website?
An accessible website is one that allows a large range of users to navigate freely and view content without creating any barriers. This means that online information has to easy to reach and available to as many visitors as possible.
To ensure that these challenges are met the web site must assume that there is no standard user or browsing device.
Visitors who have visual impairments or other conditions often use extra computer accessories to help them browse the internet. We have gone to great lengths to allow these assistive technologies to interact with the site.
Our site does not use tables to control the layout of pages, instead we use techniques which separate the content and the presentation. This enables us to reach a higher number of visitors as the words are not wrapped up in lots of table rows and columns.
Accessible features on the East Renfrewshire Council site
Standard layout and navigation structure across the site
Capacity for users to resize the text using the resize option in their browser
Capacity for users to skip directly to the content area of the page
Headings and paragraphs on pages which aid navigation with alternative browsers
Text for links that make sense when read out of context
'Breadcrumb' trail to help with navigation within a section of the site
Access keys to jump to specific areas of the websites
Cascading style sheets (CSS) are used for visual layout and presentation - on screen and print.
Relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified 'text size' option in visual browsers
Content which can be still be read even if your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all.
Technical compliance
We strive to ensure that the East Renfrewshire Council Online Service pages meet industry standards:
- We aim to make our content comply with WAI- AA priority 1 and 2 guidelines whenever possible.
- Our page templates validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional
- Our stylesheets for the site validate as CSS.
Web browser guidance
Our website has been designed and built to appear correctly on Microsoft Internet Explorer 6+ and Mozilla Firefox 2+.
It has also been tested on Safari, Opera, Google Chrome and Lynx.
If you are experiencing problems, due to an out dated version of browser we would advise you upgrade to a newer version. A newer version of your browser will most likely better support the web standards, such as CSS, and will therefore display this and many other sites far better.
Access keys
Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the website.
Internet Explorer, press 'Alt' and an access key, then 'Enter' to take you to that page.
Firefox, press 'Alt', 'Shift' and the access key.
If you are using an Apple Mac, press 'Control' and an access key, then 'Enter' to take you to that page.
All our pages use the following access keys:
Home page: 1
What’s new: 2
Frequently asked questions: 5
Help page: 6
Complaints procedure: 7
Terms and Conditions: 8
Feedback form: 9
Access key details: 0
Browsealoud
Browsealoud reads web pages aloud for people who find it difficult to read online. Reading large amounts of text on screen can be difficult for those with literacy and visual impairments.
All you have to do is download the software. Further information about Browsealoud is listed on our website.
Interactive map
East Renfrewshire strives to make as much of the site as fully available to visitors with visual impairments or other conditions. Due to the highly graphical nature of the interactive maps area we cannot currently provide this in a fully accessible format.
If you would like to help with this please contact the webteam@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk.
Contact us
We have done our best to ensure the East Renfrewshire website is as accessible as possible, however we realise that there are some technologies on this site, such as Google maps, which may not reach all visitors in the same format.
If you do find any accessibility problems that affect or prevent your use of the website, please contact the webteam@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk and we will do our best to address the problem as soon as possible.
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