Accessibility

Why be accessible?

1. The UK, the European Union and many other parts of the world mandate that web sites must meet minimum access standards thus allowing those less able to use them.
2. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends standards that web developers and site owners should meet.
3. Increasing numbers of people are accessing the web using mobile devices, if they wish to enter this site on their Iphone or similar devices I think they should get the same welcome as if they were using Internet explorer on a personal computer
4. We think it rude to exclude people simply because they are "less able".
5. We are a small family business and even if we wanted to; cannot afford to exclude valued customers even if they are less able or choose to access the web on the move. We assume our clients feel the same.

Markup Validity

This website is built using code compliant with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for web page markup (XHTML) and their appearance (Cascading Style Sheets or CSS). W3C is the governing authority on web development standards and practices.

We design sites and pages to conform with the double-A level of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. The Accessibility Guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance to these guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users.

All pages are tested and must pass various W3C approved accessibility tests before publication. We do not apply the validation logos to each page. If pages pass we publish, if not we don't.

If you have a problem accessing any information on the site, please tell us and and we will do our best to put it right.

Web standards and the semantic web

This site has been built using technologies and techniques known collectively as "the semantic web". Built this way web sites are easier to build, quicker to download, simpler to update and much more likely to be accessible to the widest possible range of devices and thus a bigger audience.

The bottom line is the bottom line as they say, working with the standards means more readers reading more pages; pages which costs less to build and maintain; more bang per buck as it were.

In a previous life we (hang our heads in shame at this point having) created webs, web content and web templates that caused hundreds of thousands of table based, and spacer gif rich pages to come into being; thus we have first hand experience of the folly and pain of not being a "standardista" and what it costs to correct them all. These days we like to get it right first time.

As with the core accessibility issues if you spot a standards problem which trips a very new (or old but supported) client device please contact us.