Information on Accessible Businesses & Facilities

Accessibility

Site description and context

The Access Aware website is auspiced by IDEAS NSW and designed to be consistent with the accessibility principles and practices implemented on the main IDEAS' website. It consists of 2 parts

• the main "portal" web pages at accessaware.com.au that are maintained by Access Aware and comprise XHTML content and forms
• the directories located at datadiction.com.au that are developed by DataDiction and comprise the Access Aware database, public search web pages and admin login area for subscribers, ambassadors and Access Aware managers to maintain database entries

Conformance statement for accessaware.com.au

Prepared 11 September 2008

Supported technologies

The technologies that this content "relies upon" are XHTML 1.0 Strict. The technologies that this content "uses but does not rely upon" are: CSS2, JPEG, PNG and GIF.

All pages of this site have been designed and generated to be accessible and usable with visual web browsers (including cross-platform compatibility), text-only software, screen readers, magnification software, voice recognition and other known assistive technologies, though not all have been fully tested. The visual design may also be more limited on older technologies such as Internet Explorer version 5.5 or older browsers.

Site requirements

To use this site, the following is needed: an Internet connection, a web browser, an input device such as a mouse/keyboard/scanner/switch/other computer access option, and an output device such as a screen/speaker/refeshable Braille device/other.

The following are not required to use this site: JavaScript, plugins or special programs, an input pointing device (mouse), page styles, images, or colors.

Navigation

The site content has been grouped into 3 high level categories for quick access to information relevant to each of the key audiences: people with access difficulties, business owners (Contibutors) and Subscribers. These links are styled as tabs and located in the main (horizontal) site navigation at the top of the web page. The main naviagtion also includes a direct link to the Access Aware Public Search page on the DataDiction server.

Other accessibility features include an enlarged active area making the links easier to use for people with limited hand function and hidden headers at the start of each navigation block for use by screen readers.

Keyboard shortcuts

There is a visible 'skip to content' link at the start of each page that is a handy option for keyboard users. This link jumps over the header and navigation to the level 2 heading at the start of the main content area.

Access and tab keys have not been used on the site. The content flow is optimised for tabbing and research has shown that the potenial for conflict between assigned web access keys and browser software keys makes this approach impractical to implement at present.

Font size adjustments

Font sizes are relative and scalable using the built in browser "Zoom In/Zoom Out" functionality or "Text Size" selections. These settings are usually found under the "View" menu at the top of the browser screen.