Accessibility Statement

This is the official web accessibility statement for the Wiltshire and Swindon Neighbourhood Watch website. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email the webmaster.

This site is in the process of being made fully accessible, to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.  Starting with this new version, we endeavour to create a site with the following feature, which are constantly being improved and added to.  We apologise for the fact that certain sections of the site are not yet as accessible as we would like, to users with certain disabilities.

A text only version of this site will be added soon for users with screen readers, poor eyesight, colour blindness, slow download speed or computers with scripts disabled. 

Font Styles

All text can be altered using your browser.  To do this:

• Internet Explorer go to View > Text Size.
• Netscape Navigator and Mozilla go to View > Text Zoom
• Opera go to View > Zoom

Access keys

Access keys are a quick way to jump to parts of a site or page using keyboard short-cuts. In Windows, you can press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, you can press Control + an access key.

By clicking on 'View Access Keys' (or press Alt+k) you can see a access key for available on the page, these are highlighted and underlined.  Here is a list of access keys:

Access Keys

Key	Main Pages	Local Pages	Association Pages
1	Navigation	Navigation	Navigation
2	-	-	-
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
A	Association pages	Association pages	Association pages
B	Mobile security	-	-
C	Useful contacts	Campaigns	-
D	Detection	-	Dates
E	Vehicle security	Events	-
F	-	-	FAQ's
G	Garden security	-	AGM
H	Home	Home	Home
I	Holiday security	-	Insurance
J	How to Join	-	-
K	Show hot keys	Show hot keys	Show hot keys
L	Local information	Local information	Local information
M	Home security	-	-
N	Crime detection	News	NNHW
O	How NHW works	-	-
P	Personal security	Appeals	-
Q	General FAQ's	Local FAQ's	-
R	Crime reduction	-	Roles
S	Bogus callers	-	Structure
T	-	-	-
U	Secure by Design	-	-
V	Securing valuables	-	-
W	What is NHW?	Newsletter	-
X	-	-	-
Y	-	-	-

Standards compliance

1. All pages on this site are Bobby AAA approved, complying with all the Bobby guidelines. Some of the guidelines cannot be tested automatically, such as whether a .gif image is animated, so I have made my own judgment and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
2. The text only version os this site is WCAG AAA approved, complying with all priority 1, 2, and 3 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The graphical version complies where ever possible but links to the text only version are available where it does not.  Again, many guidelines are intentionally vague and can not be tested automatically. I have reviewed all the guidelines and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
3. All pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional (the text only version it is almost entirely XHTML 1.1 validated, bar the support page). A program can determine with 100% accuracy whether a page is valid XHTML. For example, check the home page for XHTML validity.
4. All pages on this site use structured markup. H3 tags are used for main titles, H4 tags for subtitles.

Navigation aids

1. All pages have navigational links at the top, which include access keys, linking to 'home' and 'page navigation' (bottom of each page. These are hidden using css, but non-css users will see them and screen reader will read them.)
2. All site navigation is at the bottom of the page to aid screen readers

Links

1. Links are written to make sense out of context.

Images

1. All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.
2. Complex images include LONGDESC attributes or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.

Visual design

1. This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.
2. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
3. If your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.
4. Tables have been kept to a minimum, and only used for layout where unavoidable.
5. The site is designed to still be readable when style sheets are removed.  After the logo, the main body of the page is first in the code.

Accessibility references

1. W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
2. W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
3. W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.

Accessibility software

1. JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
2. Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
3. Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
4. Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
5. Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user style sheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.

Accessibility services

1. Bobby, a free service to analyse web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
2. HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
3. Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
4. Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.

Javascript

Javascripts have been kept to a minimum and pages and processes are still available should scripting be turned off.  (The 'Useful contacts' page is the exception but is being developed to work for all users) If you wish to disable/enable scripts in your browser do the following:

• Internet Explorer - Click Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Custom Level then check/uncheck 'disable' under 'Active Scripting' and save.
• Netscape Navigator - Click Edit -> Preferences -> expand Advanced (click arrow) -> Scripts & Plugins then check/uncheck 'Navigator' under 'Enable Javascript for'.

3rd Party Programs

Some features require 3rd party software.  All software required is available as a free download. Software required:

1. Adobe Acrobat - used to view .pdf files.
2. Flash Player - used to view Macromedia Flash objects.  These provide greater interaction with the user, but are not essential for the use of the site.

Browsers

The site is designed primarily for Internet Explorer 5.5, but every effort has been made to ensure the site appears the same in all browsers.  The site has been tested in Netscape Navigator 7.41 and Firefox, and we will continue to test the site in different browsers.