Public Bodies
Government, Local Authorities and Professional Organisations
Widgit online tools can help you to work towards meeting the criteria set out in the Disability Rights Commission’s "Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites", especially the users identified in section A.3 "Cognitive and learning";
Users with mild to medium learning or cognitive disabilities (...) users who might use a symbol browser to convert web pages to symbols or have no special access methodologies and rely on someone else assisting them.
The DRC also confirmed that people without disabilities are able to use websites that are optimised for accessibility more effectively and more successfully, so for users that do not specifically require symbol-support, the tools also ensure that every visitor to your website gets the most from your service.
Effective Communication and the Disability Discrimination Act
The growth of the internet has meant that public sector information providers can support their clients from a website. Most however do not have a symbol-supported version of their website, which can exclude the members of their target audience that need it the most.
The Disability Discrimination Act and the resulting Code of Practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission identified criteria which should be met by website developers to ensure that impaired visitors have equal access.
In the "Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites", the Disability Rights Commission recommends that, for people with cognitive impairments such as dyslexia, a website should make use of images, illustrations or symbols to support the text.
How Widgit can help
To assist web developers in meeting these criteria and to enable companies to reach their audience in a fair and accessible way, Widgit have developed two new online web services: Point and Insite. These new technologies utilise Widgit’s extensive symbol database and smart symbolisation technology. This allows for easy symbolisation of some or all of the content on a website, giving the web author control, and the visitor to the site a uniquely supportive experience.
