We are committed to making sure our website is accessible to all our users equally. We have tried to ensure you will be able to access all of our content whatever limitations you might face. Whether you have a disability that affects how you access the internet, or whether your access to the internet is affected by the device you’re using, your internet connection or where you happen to be.
At the time of writing this website passed the checkpoints within the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that are relevant to us. Please get in touch if you have problems accessing any parts of the site.
Visit the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative pages to find out more about web accessibility: www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals
For full details of what we tested and how the website meets the WCAG 2.1 AA criteria please see our Accessibility Evaluation Report
The report is quite technical so here is a summary which explains how we have made our site accessible.
Page Structure
We have written our pages so the order of the content makes sense whether pages are styled or read out as simple text. We include sidebars in some pages. However they are clearly labelled and don’t interrupt the main content. All pages have a descriptive title, which describes the content of the page.
We’ve made sure that the link text, on links and buttons, describes clearly what the link is for.
Text alternatives
We will try to present the majority of our content as text within a web page so it can be accessed by any device. Non-text content include: PDFs, images and embedded content.
PDFs – Sometimes we have to provide documents in pdf format. This is because they have official formatting or they have been given to us by another organisation. All information in pdf format will be provide with a summary of the information and a link to download the full document. We will make sure that pdf documents accessible and are made with text content so they can be read by screen readers, or so that you can increase text size.
Complex images – Sometimes we are asked to share images with lots of text, such as posters or other informational documents. To make sure they are accessible we will do the following: Images will be provided with a description as to their purpose e.g. a poster. Also we will display the equivalent content in text form, or, if the text is too long, we will provide a link where the content can be obtained. We will keep use of such content to a minimum.
Alt text – If for whatever reason you can’t view images, we will provide an alternative text description of the image so you don’t miss out. This alternative text is put in the image alt attribute, more commonly known as ‘alt text’. We’ll choose sensible wording to clarify the meaning of content when images aren’t visible. Some images, such as the feature images displayed on each post summary, are purely decorative. With purely decorative images we have left the alt text empty.
Embedded content – We’ll make sure we clearly label embedded content. For instance our embedded Google Map has a descriptive header, a brief description of landmarks and a title attribute in the iframe.
Navigating content
The website header, with site identity and navigation, is provided on all pages to help you understand where you are in the site, and find your way around. A sitemap, also provided, gives you an alternative way to navigation the website.
To help user agents (e.g. web browsers, screen readers) understand what different elements or sections on a page are for we use “ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) landmark roles”. We have included the following landmark roles in our website templates so that someone using assistive technology can more easily navigate within a page:
- banner (for our page header),
- navigation,
- complementary (for sidebars and slider content),
- main,
- article,
- contentinfo (for our page footer)
Colour and contrast
All text elements including headings, links and buttons are styled consistently to help you find your way around the website: Our headings are blue, and our links are brown, buttons are blue.
Some people have difficulties (technical or physical) distinguishing colours, so we also use other things to make sure they can still see the page structure. For headings we use size and type styles to distinguish them from normal text. Links use text-decoration or borders as well as colour. When a link is in focus it has a is clearly visible outline. This means you can comfortably navigate the page using a keyboard
There is sufficient contrast between foreground and background colours in all instances of text.
We have made special versions of our logo for the website: an English version and a Welsh version. We have increased the size of the text on the web versions of the logo so it’s easier to read.
Text size
You can increase the text size using your browser. Increasing text size also proportionally increases line height making the content confortable to read. In addition, we’ve made sure that if you increase text size there’s no overlap or hiding of content.
Using the website
All areas of the website including links, navigation and contact form are accessible using a keyboard, as well as through using a mouse and touch gestures. The dropdown menus on the main menu are accessible with keyboard through a toggle button that shows and hides the links within the sub menu.
The scrolling photo banner on the home page can be paused and scrolled using the keyboard.
Links and buttons are in sequential and logical order, so you can easily tab through the content using the keyboard.
We have tested the website on different devices at different orientations. Content is viewable whatever device or orientation.
In our contact form we have clearly labelled the inputs. When you click on a form field, or its label, the field background and border will change colour to show that the field is in focus. Form errors are marked up with landmark role=’alert’. The alert provides an explaination of the error and is clearly differentiated with a coloured border.
Language
This is a bilingual website with pages available in either English or Welsh. We use a language attribute within the page code. This allows the browser or assistive technology to ‘know’ what language the content is in, and to use the correct pronunciation rules. We aim to provide all content in both languages. If there’s Welsh on the English page or vice versa, we’ll mark up the language separately to let the assistive technology know about the change in language.
The exception to this is when a Welsh phrase becomes adopted by English speakers, or an English phrase is adopted by Welsh speakers. For example on an English page the name of the council building Canolfan Coed Cyrnal is used by English speakers, so we don’t need to mark the language as Welsh.
The embedded Google map of the council offices is provided for the convenience of our visitors. The language that the Google map is displayed in depends on your preferred language (set in your browser settings). For Wales and the Welsh language however a significant number of the map labels are only available in English. We apologise for this and hope it doesn’t significantly effect your experience.
Valid code
We have tested pages for code validation with the W3C Validator: validator.w3.org – no errors were found. This improves compatibility with various devices and technologies, including assistive technologies, both now and in the future.