What digital accessibility means to us

Everyone at the council must work to deliver digitally accessible services to people in Nottinghamshire.

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 these 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. For example, 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, sight impaired (partially sighted) or severely sight impaired (blind) 
  • hearing - people who are hard of hearing or deaf
  • mobility - people with motor difficulties or who find it hard to use a mouse, keyboard or touch screen
  • thinking and understanding - people with low reading literacy, 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
  • difficulty concentrating in stressful situations
  • 'temporary disabilities' like a broken arm, 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 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

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 helps to deliver accessible council services

Everyone who commissions, manages or contributes to our websites and other online systems is responsible for making sure it's accessible. This includes systems we pay a supplier to provide.

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

Leadership ensures accessibility is incorporated into the council's corporate strategy, identity and ambitions.

Communications offers best practice guidance and advice for writing, revising and implementing service content to meet both user needs and legal requirements.

Council services and organisations that work with us aim to create or commission: 

  • text content that's easily understood - for example, using clear page structure, simple plain English and clear link text
  • accessible non-text content like images, videos and audio 
  • accessible web pages and documents (like PDFs)

They then must regularly review their content to make sure it's up to date. They can also use feedback from residents and staff, including those with disabilities, to improve their information to work for more people. 

Web content writers, builders or editors deliver the accessible end page by making sure information:

  • is easily understood using correct page structure, simple plain English and clear link text
  • combines service content with web elements correctly - for example, by adding 'coded' heading and sub-headings to content
  • is tested regularly using both manual and automated web content checks

Website developers design and test our websites so they meet minimum accessibility standards. For example, by making sure web pages work:

  • with service content published by web editors 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 ensure external digital systems we purchase meet minimum accessibility standards and have a clear plan for fixing issues if they do not.

Customers service receive feedback from residents and fellow employees on how usable our websites are, including for those with disabilities. This helps us 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 doing 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, are low cost and give content creators a chance to upskill and feel confident about accessibility. 

To help, we've created an online resource where everyone can come and learn, at their own pace, how to make web content accessible. It has guides for writing content, using images online and publishing content in different digital formats, like web pages, in documents and video. 

Learn more at How to create accessible content.