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Accessibility

Overview of accessibility, access officer contact details, web site accessibility features and improvements and guidelines and standards used, and help for users with disabilities. 

Clare County Council is committed to providing information and services that are accessible to all customers. In December 2008, Clare County Council achieved the NDA Excellence Through Accessibility Award.

The role of the Access Officer is to provide assistance and guidance to persons with disabilities in accessing local authority services. Access officer contact details:

Cliona Corry,
Access Officer,
Clare County Council,
Áras Contae an Chláir,
New Road,
Ennis.
Co.Clare
Email: ccorry@clarecoco.ie
Telephone: (065) 6846253

Alternative formats

If you require a particular form or publication in a particular format, please contact customer services.

Accessibility of this web site

For help with using the site and its various accessibility features see our help for users with disabilities section. If you have any problems using this site for any reason, please phone us at (065) 6846377 or email us at webteam@clarecoco.ie. You can also use the feedback form at the bottom of every page. We would welcome any comments or feedback that you have in relation to accessibility or using this site in general.

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Guidelines and standards

This site is designed in accordance with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (Version 2.0) and conforms to all Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints (AA Compliance) and most of the Priority 3 checkpoints (AAA Compliance). 

Accessible HTML, publications and forms

Our content authors create content with accessibility in mind; this includes semantic mark-up and optimising content for assistive technologies. Publications and long documents that are available in PDF format are created with accessibility in mind. This includes features such as semantic structure and navigation menus etc. PDFs are created from well-structured word documents, thus maintaining the semantic structure. Our document authors have completed training in how to create publications in a way that is suitable for conversion to accessible PDF.

Forms

To date some forms have been created that have specific support for assistive technologies and that can be either printed out and filled in by hand or filled in on-screen and printed out. For example, the planning application form is available as an accessible PDF that can be filled in on-screen and printed out. Other forms are provided as accessible Word forms that have support for assistive technologies.

PDFs

Many publications are in PDF format and we aim to make PDFs accessible. Accessibility and usability features in PDFs include correctly marked up semantic structure, the addition of document properties, bookmarks and internal links for ease of navigation, tagging and alternative text for images. Our document authors receive training in how to create documents with accessibility in mind so that they can then be converted to accessible PDFs. 

 

Colour contrast

The colours for textual elements in the site conform to AAA of version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. 

 

Maintaining accessibility

We are committed to maintaining and monitoring the accessibility of this website. We have created a library of guidelines for content authors and managers on the topics of creating accessible documents, publications and web content. We also provide continuous support in how to create accessible content to web authors and content managers.

In addition, web authors and content managers as well as members of the web team attended training in Writing for the Web.

A workflow process in our Web CMS allows us to monitor content for accessibility issues so that they can be resolved. We monitor the web site and track any issues encountered. A form at the bottom of every page on the web site allows you to submit any issues or feedback. We review these on a daily basis, tracking any issues so that they can be resolved. 

Help for users with disabilities

We are keen to hear from you about any possible barriers to accessibility and any issues that you encounter using this web site. The information below is for general information as many of our customers will be already familiar with these techniques.

If you are using a screen reader you can skip over the set of navigation links to access the main content directly (e.g. skip left navigation, skip to content etc.).

Use the tab key to jump between links

You can use the tab key on your keyboard to jump from one link to the next. All navigation bars in the site provide a logical order for this.

Text size

All the text on this site can be resized. Click Ctrl + to increase the text size. Click Ctrl - to decrease the text size. Alternatively, go to the "View" menu in your web browser, choose the text option (or zoom in some browsers) then select your chosen setting.

Text equivalents for multimedia

All video clips on this site are supplied with captions to provide. A caption is a text transcript for the audio track of a video presentation that is synchronized with the video and audio tracks. Captions benefit people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.

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General help

Navigating the site and finding information

There are several ways to navigate and find content. 

  • The main menu is a global navigation bar with a megamenu which we hope will help you to quickly find the content you want. 
  • The search feature is on the top right of every page. 
  • The sitemap is a list of all the main topics in the site, grouped by section and you'll will find the link to it in the footer of every page. 
  • The A-Z of Services is an alphabetic listing of the main services and the link to it is in the footer of every page.

Viewing PDF documents

There are some PDF files (Portable Document Format files) files on this site. In order to view these documents you need a PDF reader. If this software is not installed on your computer you can download it, for free, from the Adobe Website.

Comments and suggestions / help requests

The Clare County Council web site was developed with accessibility in mind. We welcome any comments or feedback in relation to accessibility or using this site in general. If you have any problems using this site for any reason, please phone us at (065) 6846377 or email us at webteam@clarecoco.ie or use the online form at the end of each page. 

Page last reviewed: 16/09/20

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