Page content section :
Why the new look website?
The Adur District Council website has just undergone a major overhaul and has received a complete new look in November 2005.
This new look is the culmination of several months work in late 2005, research and testing to come up with the new design incorporating many accessibility design features and new ideas detailed below. Once the design was finalised the rebuild and testing of the new look site took 19 days. The upload of the site took about two hours and the swap over from old to new look took about ten minutes.
Additional accessibility enhancements have been made during 2006 and 2007
You can find out more about the accessibility of our website in the accessibility section.
Why did we do this?
Every council in the country has to meet certain guidelines for their website. These are set by central government and various other outside bodies. The changes made to our website were made so that it should meet these new and tighter guidelines.
Further website accessibility enhancements in 2006 and 2007 :
Improved keyboard navigation : ‘skip to links’ have been added allowing users to jump to the parts of the webpage they are interested in, eg page content, site navigation, contact details etc. When the webpage loads and the tab key is pressed they appear and become usable, but to a sighted mouse user they remain invisible. For someone using a screen reader they are always available at the top of each webpage.
Link focus aids : as the mouse moves over a hyperlink the text and background colour both change, this helps partially sighted users or keyboard navigators spot where they are on the page. They also work for someone not using a mouse to navigate (eg using the keyboard and tab key, or other assistive technology accessibility aids such as switch interfaces).
Colour contrast has been adjusted for greater clarity and readability.
Website recoded in XHTML strict to enhance accessibility.
External weblinks only show their name on screen (to avoid unnecessary clutter), but include their URL when printed eg “BBC website” on screen, becomes “BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk)” when printed.
A missing file (404 error) webpage has been added giving instructions and links to help find the page and how to report a broken link (as well as an automated message to the webmaster).
Smaller file sizes, greater speed : these changes have allowed further webpage size reductions by about 5% resulting in quicker downloads which saves time (and money if using a dial-up, or download limited, connection). This is in addition to the file size reductions previously acheived in 2005.
What changes have we made to achieve the new look design in 2005 :
Navigation :
The basic navigation of the website has been improved and you should now be able to find what you are after within two (or sometimes three) clicks of the mouse from anywhere in the website (it used to be three or four clicks).
The search and A to Z sections are now directly accessible from every webpage across the top of the page.
A sitemap has been included.
A frequently asked questions section has been added and will be developed over the coming months.
A 'breadcrumb' line has been added so you can track your navigation through the website and jump back to any point in your search. This also prints out so you can easily find how to get back to a particular page.
There are now 'quick links' across the top of the page to frequently requested pages and useful pages.
The main 'navigation sections' down the left-hand side of the page remains with a couple of new sections added.
A new right-hand column has been added containing useful information such as :
- Relevant contact details for each service/page.
- Related webpages on our website and other useful external websites are listed (or sometimes in the body of the text) to make them easy to find.
- Frequently asked questions are linked to in the right hand column as well (if there are any that relate to a page).
For more information about website navigation see the navigation page.
Accessibility :
Every website should now be accessible to everyone according to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
The new Adur website has been designed using cascading style sheets (CSS) for its look and feel which has separated 'page content' from 'page design'. In doing this the website should now meet the DDA requirements and be much more accessible to everyone, not just those with a disability. Separating content from design means that those using screen readers and other assistive technologies should be able to use the website without being hindered by unuseful graphics and 'screen candy'. If your browser allows then you can turn off the CSS and still easily navigate and use our website.
Font sizes on screen are now variable by using your web browser, so if you want bigger (or smaller) fonts on screen then you can have them.
Access keys have been included throughout the website to assist keyboard navigation, and you can also use the tab key to navigate the site. We now make full use of the UK Government accesskeys standard.
When printed the website the printed page defaults to a 12 point font size to aid legibility. Unnecessary navigation areas of the screen will not be printed, just the page content, contact details and a few other important areas (helping to save you ink). URLs of linked to websites will also print out if they are not displayed on the screen.
The website has been designed using a range of tools to make sure it is as accessible as possible. It meets AA accessibility requirements and where possible AAA requirements as well. For more information on the tools used please see the web accreditation page.
Friendly URLs :
Our new website now has 'friendly URLs' that in many cases can be guessed at. This means you can open our website at www.adur.gov.uk and then add a single (or sometimes hyphenated) word to get to the page you want to, for example :
- www.adur.gov.uk
- www.adur.gov.uk/jobs
- www.adur.gov.uk/planning
- www.adur.gov.uk/health
- www.adur.gov.uk/environmental-health
- www.adur.gov.uk/travel
- etc ...
Some URLs you guess at will achieve a redirection page pointing you to the right location and thus avoiding content duplication, eg www.adur.gov.uk/schools will redirect you to www.adur.gov.uk/education.
Implementing these new friendly URLs means that almost every page on the website has been moved (and every image, photo and logo). To help those of you who have bookmarked pages on our site every page that has been moved has had a redirection page left in its place so you can easily find it new location.
File sizes and speed of website :
In redesigning the website we have managed to trim about 25% to 30% off of the file size of every webpage. This results in quicker downloads saving you time (and money if you are using a dial-up or download size limited internet connection).
Meta tagging :
Central government now requires that all council websites are 'meta-tagged' to meet guidelines they have set. This tagging has been designed so that any council website in the UK should be tagged in the same way and thereby assists you in finding the page you are after on whichever council site you visit.
Until early this year the tagging standard was the LGCL (Local Government Category List) tagging standard (www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl), however this changed part way through 2005 and subsequently the IPSV (Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary) tagging standard (www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv) was introduced around June 2005 and should now be used. We have tried to include the IPSV tags wherever applicable or possible and will aim to improve our tagging levels over the coming months.
