Accessibility
Our commitment to accessibility
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service is committed to ensuring that all its products and services are as accessible as possible to everyone. The Service strives to ensure accessibility in all areas and has a number of dedicated internal forums and discussion groups, led by its Equalities team. At the end of 2010, the Service secured the 'Achieving' level of the Fire and Rescue Services Equality Framework, and is now working towards 'Excellence'.
We aim to ensure that, as a minimum, our site meets the AA Standard and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
We have engaged an independent organisation to carry out an audit of our new site to ensure conformity with the above standards. We will then continually assess the site to ensure all content and features remain accessible to all.
Any feedback relating to the accessibility of the site reported to Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service will be considered and, wherever reasonable, appropriate action will be taken.
Accessibility features
Features of the site that have been designed with accessibility in mind include:
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Information is set out to enable screen-readers to read the content – including correctly ordered and formatted headers, bulleted lists and correctly marked-up data tables.
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Unless the image is used for decorative effect only, it will have alternative text describing what is in the image- with long descriptions used for images that convey a lot of information.
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The site’s Hyper Text Mark-Up Language (HTML – the written code that makes up the website) and the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS – the code that determines the style of the sites) are valid according to the World Wide Web Consortium’s automated checks.
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Users can increase and decrease text size using the text sizing buttons in the footer of each page. These options only resize the text and not the images or other objects.
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Users can set the colour scheme to high contrast by using the high visibility display button in the footer of each page.
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There is also a built-in zoom-in or zoom-out feature within more recent browsers (including Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome etc). Please note this facility increases or decreases the entire display size, not just the text. This could possibly cause the content, and particularly images and videos, to become blurred, if zoomed extensively. In the majority of browsers 'Control +' can be used to zoom-in, and 'Control -' to zoom-out. 'Control 0' sets the display back to the default size.
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Links to external websites are clearly marked with an icon and alternative (hidden) text for use by screen readers.
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This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified 'text size' option in visual browsers.
Navigation Aids
- A link to the Home page is included within each page via the consistently applied top menu bar. There is also a site-wide search box.
- The 'breadcrumb trail' is a navigational aid which runs underneath the top menu header on every page of the website. Breadcrumb trails show a particular page's location within the website and help to demonstrate the page's relationship to higher level pages.
- This site also contains a site map showing the subject areas within the website.
- Users can navigate menu items or select links within a page by using a mouse or the 'tab' key on their keyboard. To navigate back, simply hold down the 'shift' key and then press the 'tab' key.
Plain English
This website has been written in plain / jargon-free English to make it easier for all users to understand its content.
Access Keys
Because of the potential conflict with keyboard shortcuts already designated by assistive technologies, browsers and operating systems, the Service has chosen not to use Access Keys for this site .
Listen to this site with BrowseAloud
Visitors can listen to this website with BrowseAloud, which is free to website visitors and can be easily downloaded from the BrowseAloud Download Page.
BrowseAloud makes websites accessible to those who require online reading support, which is 20% of the UK population. It works by reading web pages aloud in a human-sounding voice. The user simply hovers their mouse pointer over the text to hear it read aloud.
Report an accessibility problem
To report an issue that you encounter that relates to your access and enjoyment of the site, please use our feedback form or send us an email with details of your comments.
Further guidance
Further guidance on accessibility can be found on the following websites:
