Online accessibility statement
Commitment to accessibility
Freight Best Practice is committed and actively working to ensure that the Freight Best Practice website (www.freightbestpractice.businesslink.gov.uk) is usable and accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of disability, capability or technology.
Guidelines and standards
Freight Best Practice continuously takes all reasonable steps to ensure that its online content complies with world best practice web and accessibility guidelines and standards, including:
Freight Best Practice also takes all reasonable steps to ensure that this website is as accessible as possible across the most common operating systems, internet-enabled hardware and web browsers currently available on the market.
Conformance with these guidelines and standards help make this website more accessible and user friendly for all people.
Exceptions
This website contains a large volume of content. The accessibility of this content is being improved to ensure compliance with online accessibility guidelines and standards. Some content, however, may not be accessible to all people. Where it is not possible to provide content in fully accessible formats all reasonable efforts will be taken to:
- follow the accessible authoring techniques for propriety formats
- provide alternative accessible versions
- provide contact details for the supply of alternative non-web formats
Contacting us
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this website, or if you have difficulty using any part of it, please contact us.
Web Manager
Freight Best Practice
AECOM Ltd
Church Street
Altrincham
WA14 4DZ
Tel: 0161 927 8331
info@freightbestpractice.org.uk
Summary of the online accessibility policy for Freight Best Practice
Freight Best Practice endeavours to develop and maintain accessible and usable online content. This will ensure that:
- online content is as inclusive and usable as possible
- legal requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act (1995/2005) are met
Policy intention
This policy identifies clear accessibility principles that content on the Freight Best Practice website should follow.
Policy timetable
The website contains a large volume of online content. This online content is being systematically audited for relevance to current Freight Best Practice outcomes and for compliance with online accessibility standards. A multi-faceted timetable for improving the accessibility of new, existing and legacy online content has been adopted:
- all new online content will comply with online accessibility standards
- all reasonable efforts will be taken to ensure that existing online content complies with online accessibility standards - priority will be given to improving key documents and popular (highly visited) sections of the website
- unless specifically requested by visitors to the website, only minimal efforts will be taken to ensure that 'archived' legacy online content complies with online accessibility standards
Online content formats
Online content will primarily be published on the website as extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) files that use cascading style sheets (CSS).
Exceptions
The Freight Best Practice website has some online content that can not be provided in XHTML. Where non-XHTML formats are used:
- files will be created in accordance with the accessible authoring techniques available for these formats
- all reasonable efforts will be taken to provide alternative accessible versions
- contact details will be provided for the supply of alternative non-web formats
Situations where online content may be provided in non-XHTML formats include:
- content with technical restrictions or legal requirements
- content with specific requirements for specific audiences
- user-generated (third-party) content
- time-critical content archived legacy content
- online versions of hardcopy publications
- content in online databases and applications
Conformance with web and online accessibility standards
Online content on the website will confirm to world best practice web and accessibility standards and guidelines published by the:
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
- United Kingdom Government Central Office of Information (COI)
- creators of propriety software (e.g. Adobe, Microsoft etc)
In particular, Freight Best Practice will continuously take all reasonable steps to ensure that its online content complies with:
Checking conformance with web and online accessibility standards
Conformance checking against W3C/WAI and COI guidelines and specifications will be regularly carried out by Freight Best Practice. The technical and usable accessibility of online content on the website will be checked using:
- automated testing and validation
- manual checks
- assistive technology tool testing
- expert reviews and conformance inspections of representative samples of web pages
Accessibility testing timetable
Freight Best Practice will use a combination of various testing techniques to test for accessibility compliance. In particular, testing will be carried out at four key stages throughout the website's design lifecycle:
- requirements gathering
- design
- build
- maintenance
Accessibility user testing profiles
Disabilities to be considered during the development and redevelopment of content on the Freight Best Practice website may include a mixture of mild, moderate and severe:
vision impairment
- mobility problems
- cognitive and learning problems
- hearing loss
Consideration will also be given to other users who will benefit from improved online accessibility, including:
- people with slow internet connections
- people with low bandwidth quotas
- people using hand-held mobile internet-enabled devices
- people with English as a second language
- people from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds
- people from different generations
Accessibility user testing techniques and technologies
A combination of techniques and adaptive technologies that disabled users may employ will be tested, including:
- screen reader and text-to-speech software
- keyboard only operation
- adaptive hardware and input devices
- changing text size and formatting
Accessibility across different operating systems, internet-enabled hardware and web browsers will also be tested.
Accessibility user testing tasks
Accessibility user testing will involve completing core tasks that users should be able to achieve on the website. The criteria for determining the success of accessibility user testing of the website include:
- effectiveness
- efficiency
- satisfaction
Contacts
For further information about the Freight Best Practice online accessibility policy please contact:
Web Manager
Freight Best Practice
AECOM Ltd
Church Street
Altrincham
WA14 4DZ
Tel: 0161 927 8331
info@freightbestpractice.org.uk