We have tried to design our website to make it as accessible as possible whilst remaining visually interesting and easy to use.
Currently, this website includes a variety of features:
Change Contrast (high contrast)
Accessing Hounslow Homes Services - leaflet
Browsealoud screenreader information
In addition, this website has been speech enabled and for users of Browsealoud and will work well with other screenreading technologies. Go to the Browsealoud/screenreader page for more information.
Access keys
The ability to navigate the site using other means than a mouse can be important for those who have difficulties in using a mouse or other pointing devices.
To help with this we have set up 'Access Keys' on the site which allow easy navigation to the main pages on the website.
In addition to helping those who have difficulty using a Mouse, access keys allow quick access to the main pages for anyone who prefers to use the keyboard.
To use the access keys on this site
follow these steps (PC users) :
- For Internet Explorer users, Press and hold the 'alt' key. For Mozilla Firefox users, press and hold the 'shift' and 'alt' keys.
- Press the required letter or number
- Press the return key and the browser will load the relevant page.
Please note that if you are using a Mac, you should follow these steps:
- Press and hold the 'ctrl' key
- Press the required letter or number
As well as standard UK Government access keys we have added some of our own, specific to our website. Details of Hounslow access keys are shown below.
Access Keys
(Please note Access Keys may not work on all browsers)
0 Accessibility information
1 Back to Home Page
2 News
3 Site map
4 Search the site (advanced)
5 Help
S Skip navigation
Images and alt tags
We have tried not to use too many images on this site in an effort to maximise quick download times and access to information which cannot be read if in image format.
Where images are used we have added 'Alt' tags - text alternatives so that you will still know what the image is meant to convey even if it doesn't load, you've have chosen to browse with the images switched off or you are using an assistive technology like a screen reader to browse the web page rather than view.
Resizable text
We have been careful to make sure that we haven't fixed the size of the textual information on the website so that visitors who wish to can alter the font size on the screen to make it easier to read.
There are a number of ways to change the text size in your browser, the easiest way is to follow the steps below (Internet Explorer and Firefox):
- Select the 'View' menu.
- Select the 'Text Size' option from the menu.
- Click on the text size you wish to view.
It is also possible to increase the size of the text by holding down the Ctrl key on the bottom left hand row of the keyboard whilst using the scroll wheel on your mouse to increase (or decrease) the size of the text.
If you don't have a scroll wheel, you can also hold down Ctrl and hit the + (plus) key to increase text size, or the - (minus) key to decrease text size.
Change Contrast (high contrast)
We have provided our web users with an option to change the colour contrast on each of our web pages. If you have limited or low vision, you may find this website feature useful.
This website's change contrast option (located near the top and left of the browser window) provides a high contrast viewing option. The page contrast option switches the text to yellow and the background to black. The page can easily be changed back to the default contrast setting by clicking on the 'Graphic' link.
Colours and contrast
We have considered the needs of users who are colourblind by selecting colour combinations with sufficient contrast between foreground and background.
You can however use your own preferred colour scheme. Instructions on how to change background and font colours for the most common web browsers appear below.
Microsoft Internet Explorer - versions 5 and 6
Select Tools from the menu bar at the top of your window
- From the options which appear, select Internet options
- Click the General tab
- Click the button marked Accessibility
- To remove background and font colours, tick the checkbox labelled Ignore colours specified on web pages
- Click on Colours
You can choose your own preferred colours for text, page background and links
Mozilla Firefox
Select Options from the Tools menu at the top of the window
Click on the Content button in the window that appears
Under the "Fonts and Colours" sub-heading, press the button labelled "Colours..."
Make your selections and then click OK.
Coding standards and Double-A conformance
This website is built using code compliant with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. W3C is the governing authority on web development standards and practices.
The site displays correctly with current browsers, and using standard XHTML code means that any future browsers will also display this website correctly.
We are continuously improving this website to ensure that pages conform to the Double-A level of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
The Accessibility Guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance to these Guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users.
There may be a few pages that do not conform to all the guidelines. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the whole site conforms, with many web contributors, this is an ongoing process.
