Accessibility

Accessibility is very important to us at the City of Ryde and we are always looking at new ways to make our information, events, facilities and services more accessible to the wider community.

Website Accessibility

Our website is a big part of this as it provides a meaningful way to be informed about what Council does and how we can help you.

Our website is certified under the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – the international standard for web accessibility - as being WCAG 2.0 AA-compliant.

This means our website is designed, developed and maintained in a way that benefits people with and without disabilities. Some examples of this include:

  • Our content management system supports accessibility by providing themes and templates that are accessible
  • Wherever possible we write text in plain English to make sure it is easily understood by most readers
  • We use headings to structure content in a logical way and ensure screen readers can navigate it easily.

Browser Accessibility Options

Many web browsers offer free accessibility extensions.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome offers a wide range of free extensions to improve accessibility including:

  • Caret Browsing extension to navigate using a keyboard
  • Color Enhancer extension to adjust webpage colours
  • High Contrast extension to adjust or remove colours
  • Image Alt Text Viewer extension to see existing alt text
  • Long Descriptions in Context Menu extension to see long descriptions.

For more information, read the Google Chrome accessibility extensions article.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer has Ease of Access options to ensure easy browsing, including the ability to:

  • Zoom on a webpage
  • Make text larger or smaller
  • Use a keyboard to surf the web
  • Change the font, formatting, and colours on pages
  • The ability to make Internet Explorer work better with a screen reader or voice recognition software.

For more information, read the Internet Explorer Ease of Access options article.

Firefox

Firefox has a number of built-in accessibility features and options including:

  • Full page zoom option
  • The ability to change fonts, sizes and colours
  • The ability to not load images and see and/or hear the Alt attributes text where images would normally be displayed
  • A built-in search bar
  • Find As You Type option
  • The ability to restrict JavaScript behaviour
  • Caret browsing option.

For more information, visit the Firefox Accessibility Features page.

Safari

Safari has a range of accessibility features, including the ability to:

  • Magnify your screen
  • Choose colour and fonts used on web pages.

Apple devices also have a number of built-in accessibility options to assist people with vision, hearing and physical and motor skill impairments and assist with learning and literacy.

For more information, visit the Apple Accessibility page.

Voice assistants

Voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby, Microsoft Cortana and Apple Siri may reduce barriers to accessing websites and mobile technology. They all offer voice commands and hands-free activation.

Other Accessibility Tools and Techniques

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative offers a comprehensive summary of techniques and tools for people living with disability to use in order to interact with the web. Find out more on the W3C Tools and Techniques page.

Feedback

We recognise that there is always room for improvement and would love to hear from you if you have any feedback or suggestions for how we can do better. 

Please visit our Contact us page to reach us by phone, email or in person.

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