Accessibility

Tell us if you are having problems accessing this site

This site has been designed to be usable and accessible. Ideally you should be able to easily find what you are looking for and understand it when you find it.

Feedback

If you cannot find something where you expect it to be, or something is difficult to use, then we would like you to tell us about it.

You can do this by adding your comments to the feedback page.

The feedback link appears at the top of every page on this site.

For general guidance on how to get the most from your browser go to the BBC's My Web My Way site.

User testing

This site has been designed based upon sound usability principles. Though we consider this to be the right approach the site has to work in the real world.

The best way to approach this problem is to test with real people. We have already done some initial user testing using volunteers from Bolton. Testing the site using people who have never used it before is one the best ways to objectively test usability. We believe the site passed that test.

Volunteers wanted

This does not mean that the site is perfect. To acknowledge this fact Bolton Museum and Archive Service is committed to maintaining a programme of user testing.

If you would like to take part in future user tests please contact the museum.

How the Site is Maintained

If you find a problem that proves to be significant, the chances are that this can be quickly and easily corrected. This is because the site is built using a web-based Content Management System (CMS).

What this means in practice is that the site editor can access and change any page on the site very easily.

What are web standards?

Bolton Museum and Archive Service is a Bolton Council service and these web pages have to comply with nationally agreed technical guidelines. This is true for all local government sites. These guidelines are in place to ensure a basic level of accessibility.

Basic standards

Since 2004 all such sites must comply with what is known as the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standard. The WAI describes three levels of compliance. These are labelled as A, AA and AAA

This site is designed to comply with the AA standard. If you think that these pages do not comply then please let us know.

Online testing

Anyone with access to the internet can check that a web page is compliant by using the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) online validation tool.

Here is an example of this page's online validation report. Every single page on this site should meet these requirements.

In practice passing this test ensures a minimum level of compliance. All pages should display as they were intended in any current web browser and using all the most popular screen sizes.

If you happen to be using an older web browser, all the information on this site might not display as intended. Even so, you should still be able to view text and images and navigate through the pages without any problem.

Web Accessibility Resources

The Web Accessibility Initiative

"WAI develops...

guidelines widely regarded as the international standard for Web accessibility
support materials to help understand and implement Web accessibility
resources, through international collaboration"