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Web Site Accessibility Statement

We aim to make the Westminster Information Advice Support Service (IASS) web site accessible to the widest possible audience and to comply with UK government accessibility guidelines.

We have endeavoured to meet Level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. However there may be areas of the web site where it has not been possible to meet the standards set out by the guidelines.

Our web site has been designed and built with attention to accessibility including testing colour contrasts and ensuring pages can be navigated without a mouse.

This is an overview of the steps we have taken to make content on our web site as accessible as possible:

XHTML and CSS
This web site has been built using web standard XHTML and CSS. If CSS is ‘turned off’ then the web site remains functional and all content can still be accessed.

Javascript
We have used Javascript on some areas of our web site to add interactivity and to enhance the web site experience for all users. Where JavaScript isn’t available, we have implemented graceful degradation to ensure a lack of JavaScript doesn’t break the site or block access to content.

Web Site Evaluation
The accessibility of our web site has been evaluated using the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE) powered by WebAim:
http://wave.webaim.org

This is a technical evaluation of the web site against guidelines rather than an assessment of usability.

Images and ALT tags
We add ALT tags to images where an image conveys essential information, and we attempt to convey that same information using the ALT tag. We do not add ALT attributes to decorative images as we feel this information is excessive and not useful and can hinder the operation of screen readers attempting to provide important content to web site users.


Features that enhance web site accessibility
We provide content in a variety of different formats in order to make it as accessible as possible, including:

  • high colour contrast between background colours and text to help users who may have visual impairments.

  • an individual colour and font scheme of blue / grey that has been identified as particularly useful for users with dyslexia.

  • a text-only version of web site content that removes all images, colour and styling and can be easily read by screen readers.

  • clear links to change the size of text used throughout the web site.

  • automatic translation of web site content into other languages.


Areas for improvement
We recognise there are areas for improvement particularly in the following areas:

  • provision of transcripts for video and audio clips.

  • provision of captions on video clips.

  • content and functionality from third parties.

We monitor other web sites to assess best practice for web site accessibility on an ongoing basis and we work with external vendors to ensure the solutions they provide us are as accessible as possible. 

If you would like to provide feedback about the accessibility of the web site then please contact us through our online form.

​Developments to the web site in line with user feedback about accessibility will be evaluated in line with what is likely to make the largest impact to our users and the cost of achieving these objectives.