Accessibility

The Northern Cobblestone website is powered by EasierThan Website Design who are continually striving to make the websites they produce more inclusive and accessible to all users regardless of technological or physical disability.

This page details what has been done to make this website interface more usable and accessible:

Access Keys

To aid in the navigation of this website, we have enabled several access keys (short cut keys) to some of the most useful pages, such as the Home page. We have also included links for some of the site's added functionality such as the Skip Navigation link.

The majority of web browsers support access key functionality. To use access keys you need to do the following:

  • For Windows users, press "Alt" or "Alt+Shift", plus the listed access key.
  • For Macintosh users, press "Ctrl" or "Ctrl+Opt", plus the listed access key.
  • Pressing "Enter" will then take you to the page.
  • For more information visit the Wikipedia Entry for Access Keys.

The following is a list of the Access Keys currently available and their functions:

  • S = Skip Navigation
  • 1 = Home
  • 3 = Site Map
  • 0 = Accessibility

Assistive Technology

People with disabilities use assistive technology to aid with the use of websites, thus allowing them to complete tasks that may not be achievable otherwise.

During the development of their website templates, EasierThan make every effort to ensure all pages work with the following technologies:

  • Screen Readers
  • Text Only Browsers
  • Screen Magnifiers

If you experience problems using these tools on the Northern Cobblestone website or have any recommendations to improve accessibility using assistive technology please contact EasierThan Website Design via their website and we'll do our best to make improvements.

Visual Design

Every effort is made to ensure that the visual design of our websites can be successfully experienced by all visitors.

Acronyms

As much as possible, where acronyms are used on a site, an acronym tag is added which states what they stand for. Where this occurs, the acronym is underlined with a dotted line and when the mouse cursor is put over it a tool-tip appears.

  • For example, BBC

The acronym tag also helps Assistive Technology in identifying an acronym.

Browsers

The design has been tested using a variety of different browsers, both modern and old, to ensure that it can be viewed by the largest number of visitors possible.

Browsers tested include:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Google Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera

The fluid website template is also designed to work on mobile devices such as tablets and phones.

Colours

The design makes use of colours that provide maximum contrast between foreground and background items.

Forms

All online forms within the site have labels attached to the fields to ensure that the purpose of a field is read out to any visitors using Assistive Technology.

Frames

The design does not make any use of frames as they can cause navigation problems for Assistive Technology.

Images

All graphics and images throughout the site are assigned an alt-text attribute, which helps to describe the contents or function of the item.

Tables

Within the site, all tables carry meaningful table summaries and table headers to ensure that Assistive Technology can successfully interpret the contents. Tables are never used for decorative layout as this can also cause confusion.

W3C Compliance

The Northern Cobblestone website has been designed in accordance with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) internationally recognised Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines. The WAI is a set of guidelines for producing usable and accessible websites.

There are three levels of web accessibility under the initiative - "A", "AA" and "AAA". Every effort has been made to ensure that all pages on the Northern Cobblestone website conform to at least a priority 2 "AA" rating:

Logo - W3C Accessibility AA Rating

Detailed information about the WAI can be found at: