Website given A plus for accessibility

29 January 2010

Wycombe District Council's new look website has been awarded Shaw Trust's "Accessible plus" accreditation for its ease of use for people with disabilities.

During the development of the website - which was created by vli - the Council commissioned Shaw Trust to advise on and audit the site, in addition to conducting a range of user testing to make sure that it was accessible to everyone.

Following Shaw Trust's rigorous testing, which is advocated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission as providing the highest level of assurance that a website is accessible to everyone, recommendations were put into place which led to the website being awarded the "Accessible plus" accreditation. This is higher than the previous version of the website, which had an "Accessible" accreditation.

Cllr Lesley Clarke, Leader of Wycombe District Council, commented: "Making sure that our services can be accessed by everyone is a top priority and it is absolutely vital that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else. We have put a lot of effort into improving the accessibility of our website and we are really delighted to have improved on our previous accreditation and to have achieved 'Accessibile plus'."

Cam Nicholl, Sales and Service Development Manager at Shaw Trust added: "People with certain disabilities can find it difficult or even impossible to access, navigate or read the content of a web page if the information isn't presented correctly.

"It's really important to remember that it is a legal requirement for public facing websites, intranet and extranets to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and that it also meets the Disability Equality Duty criteria as laid out in the Central Office of Information's report 'Building Inclusive Websites'.

"If you are unsure whether your website complies with the relevant guidelines, Shaw Trust offers a comprehensive testing service where you will be left in no doubt about the standard of accessibility and whether or not your site is compliant."

Find out more about the website's range of accessibility features