How to Use this Site

Accessibility Help

The Derby Homes' website is designed to be inclusive and to provide all users with access to the site, whatever their ability.  Here are some of the initiatives we have used to make the website more accessible and easy to use.

Usability

Viewing the website

The website has been designed to provide a site that is simple and user friendly.  We aim to provide a consistent structure throughout the website, so users will know exactly where to find information.

Our website includes a:

• top bar – displays our logo and access to each section of our website – you can access these from every page within the website

• left panel – details more specific information about each section – clicking a top bar link takes you to a section page and the left panel shows the sub categories of information in this section

• content area – the main part of the website where you can read the information you have selected

• right panel – provides access to special features of the website including external links and document downloads.

Accessibility features

We have designed all our templates to help make the website accessible to all users including disabled users.  Here are some of the issues we have considered to help us achieve our aim of a high level of accessibility.

W3C Compliance

We have designed our website to comply with the guidelines issued by W3C/WAI.  We will make sure the site meets at least priority 1 (A) at all times.

Text only

As well as making all graphic templates accessible to W3C priority 3, we have also included a text only option.  This will allow users to view the website in high contrast and without graphics and pictures.
 
Tab indexing

We have included tab indexing on our website which makes tabbing through our site easier.  It also helps users who access the website using only a keyboard. 

This is the tab order of our website

Top Bar
Search
Text Size
Left Panel
Content Area
Right Panel

Assistive Technology

Disabled users can use assistive technology to help them use our website.  We have tested our website with:

• Browsealoud screen reader
• text only browsers
• screen magnifiers.

Please let us know if you have any problems using these tools or would like to recommend ways we can improve access to our website.  We will do our best to make improvements.

Visual design

To help you view our website we have:

• used colours with a maximum contrast between the background and foreground
• given all our images and graphics an Alt-text name which describes what you would be looking at if the image was displayed
• chosen the standard blue colour for all active hyperlinks
• used style sheets so you can change the size of the text using the 'text size tool' on the top bar.