What digital accessibility means to us

Everyone at Nottinghamshire County Council must work to make sure our online services are easy for everyone to use.

On this page

People deserve access to our online services

People may not have a choice when using our websites or digital services, so it’s important they work for everyone. This includes our:

  • websites and mobile apps
  • web forms
  • e-mail marketing systems
  • documents we publish on web pages
  • video and audio content
  • any digital products or content we pay someone else to provide or develop

Digital accessibility means making sure everyone can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with our services online, no matter their abilities or situation.

Digital accessibility helps people in more ways

Something can be accessible to one person and be inaccessible to another. A video without captions may be accessible to someone who can hear it, but inaccessible to those who cannot. 

All people will have different needs at different times which could impact their ability to use or understand our information online. This includes needs relating to:

  • vision - people who are colour blind, have low vision (partially sighted) or are severely sight impaired (blind) 
  • hearing - people who are hard of hearing or deaf
  • mobility - people with motor difficulties, like tremors or limited dexterity who find it hard to use a mouse, keyboard or touch screen
  • thinking and understanding - people with ADHD, autism or learning difficulties like dyslexia

Needs can be permanent, temporary or situational

About 1 in 4 people have a long term illness, impairment or disability that could impact their ability to access our digital information.

Many more will have temporary or situational access needs. For example, people may have:

  • limited time or attention span, or difficulty concentrating in stressful situations
  • 'temporary disabilities' like a broken arm, eye strain, ear infection or migraine
  • 'situational limitations' like forgetting glasses or a hearing aid or being in bright sunlight or noisy environments 
  • changing abilities due to age (including older and younger people)
  • limited computer skills or digital literacy
  • different education or reading levels

People can also be limited by their technology. For example, those with:

  • laptop computers, mobile phones, smart watches, smart TVs and other devices with different screen sizes or ways of interacting
  • slow internet, or who have limited or expensive bandwidth
  • older devices or software

Making our web pages accessible makes our services easier for everyone to use, in more situation and with more technologies.

Accessible public services make sense

As a public service, making our information easier to use and access makes sense for our users. This is because it:

Everyone plays a part

Everyone who creates, manages or contributes to our websites must make sure they are accessible. This includes on sites we pay other companies to provide.

Depending on their role, different teams are responsible in different ways. 

Leaders make accessibility part of the council's ambitions and strategy.

Communications teams offer advice on writing clear content that meets both user needs and legal requirements.

Service teams create or commission: 

  • easy to read text using clear page structure, simple plain English and clear link text
  • accessible images, videos and audio 
  • accessible web pages and documents (like PDFs)

They also regularly check that content is up-to-date. They can also listen to feedback from the members of the public and council staff, including those with disabilities, to improve their information to work for more people. 

Web editors make sure the web page is easy to use and understand by making sure information:

  • uses simple plain English, correct page structure and clear link text
  • is added in the right way using web editing tools - for example, by adding formatted or 'coded' heading and lists to content
  • is tested regularly using both manual and automated checks

Developers design and test our websites. For example, by making sure web pages work:

  • with service content using both manual and automated quality checks
  • with different assistive technologies for people with a disability, like screen readers and keyboard-only navigation
  • across different devices, like desktop and mobile

Procurement make sure suppliers meet our minimum accessibility standards and have a clear plan for fixing issues if they do not.

Customer services collect feedback from users to improve access to our services in the future. 

Making digital content accessibility an 'everyability'

We want a culture at Nottinghamshire County Council where creating accessible content is the norm, a habit, an 'everyability'. We think a big barrier to this is people simply don't know where to start. 

There are lots of best practices we can start using today. They can help people understand our information better. They are also low cost and give content creators a chance to upskill and feel confident about accessibility. 

We've created an online guide to help everyone learn how to make web content accessible. It includes simple tips for writing clearly, using images online and publishing content in different formats, like web pages, in documents and video. 

Learn more at How to create accessible content.