Accessibility

 

The project partners are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability.

 

Where possible, this website endeavours to conform to at least the level of Double-A of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.  These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities.  Conformance with these guidelines will help make the Web more user friendly for all people.  

 

This site has been built using code compliant with W3C standards for XHTML and CSS.  The site displays correctly in current browsers and using standards compliant XHTML/CSS code means any future browsers will also display it correctly.

 

The site depends on the use of digital images.  We understand that, while this addresses the problem of geographic inaccessibility, it does not fully solve the problems encountered by sight-impaired users.  However the function of the website is to encourage textual contributions by the public thereby creating descriptions of the images visible to machine-readers.  

 

The Britain from Above website offers dynamic mapping for both searching and the spatial plotting of results.  Although the mapping used in the site is not accessible for site impaired users, we offer alternative search options.  On the advanced search page we offer easting/northing boxes where the user can enter coordinates manually to conduct the same spatial search offered to the dynamic map users.  The advanced search also offers a gazetteer place name search which allows the user to enter a place name as an alternative to a spatial dynamic map search.  Once users have obtained a results listing, they have the option of plotting these results on a map.  The user may then select one of the pins to learn more about that image record and link through to the full details page.  We have developed an underlying table which lists the results and may be read by a machine-reader, allowing the user to link through to the individual image record using this list. 

 

We are committed to a programme of testing and development to improve the overall accessibility of the site and to use disabled users in our site testing and development.  In the meantime should you experience any difficulty in accessing the Britain from Above website, please contact us using the enquiries form.