Website accessibility

Blind man using braille screen reader

Council is committed to providing equal access to our community, including via our website and customer services.

Our vision for the website is to significantly enhance the online customer experience and make it easy for residents, businesses and visitors to find exactly what they’re looking for regardless of location, age, ability or technology.

If you have any difficulties using this website or finding what you're looking for, contact us.

Find out more about our support for people with disabilities and the Access and Inclusion Awards.

Web content accessibility

We are committed to making our website as accessible as possible and aim for 'AA' standard with the international Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The OpenCities platform that this website is powered by is regularly audited by Vision Australia – Australia’s peak body and industry leader for digital accessibility services.

Using this website

Our website has been designed to work on all devices and browsers, however you may experience some limitations on older technologies, such as Internet Explorer browser.

If possible, try to use a modern browser such as Chrome or Safari.

Navigation

For keyboard only users we have a ‘skip to content’ link at the top of each page, hidden from standard view, that appears as the first item when tabbing through the page.

The site allows keyboard users to tab through all menus and content. You can use arrow keys to move through options within a container such as a drop-down. Pressing the Escape key dismisses a menu or container.

Reading text aloud

Most modern computers and devices such as phone and tablets have in-built software that can automatically read the text aloud for you on this website.

Microsoft Windows 10 and 11

Windows Narrator is a screen-reading app that's built into Windows 10 and 11, so there's nothing you need to download or install.

  • To start Narrator: press the Windows logo key + Ctrl + Enter together. Press these keys again to stop Narrator. (On older versions of Windows, the command was the Windows logo key  + Enter.) On many keyboards, the Windows logo key is located on the bottom row of keys, to the left or right of the Alt key.
  • To open Narrator settings: press the Windows logo key + Ctrl + N, and then turn on the toggle under Use Narrator.

For more details on how to use Windows Narrator, visit the Microsoft support website.

iPhone and iPad

Both iPhones and iPads include the VoiceOver feature - find out more about how it works:

Apple Mac

You can have your Mac speak text that's on the screen.

You can also customise the keyboard shortcut and set other options.

Font size and zooming

The website has been optimised for you to zoom in and out, which also increases or decreases the font size.

Use the in-built controls of your browser, we've included some guidance and links below.

Google Chrome

  • For keyboards, hold down the Ctrl key and press the + or - keys to zoom in or out.
  • Holding Ctrl and pressing zero (0) resets the zoom back to 100%. 

Read more about how to change text, image and video sizes in Chrome.

Apple Safari

  • For iPhone and iPad, use your fingers to pinch open or closed to zoom in or out.
  • For Mac, hold down the Command (Cmd) key and press the or - keys to zoom in or out.

Read more about how to zoom on web pages in Safari on Mac or for iPhone or iPad.

Mozilla Firefox

  • For keyboards, hold down the Ctrl key and press the or - keys to zoom in or out.
  • Holding Ctrl and pressing zero (0) resets the zoom back to 100%.

Read more about how to change font size and zoom in Firefox.

Microsoft Edge

  • For keyboards, hold down the Ctrl key and press the or - keys to zoom in or out.
  • Holding Ctrl and pressing zero (0) resets the zoom back to 100%.

Read more about the accessibility features in Microsoft Edge, including making text larger.

Photos and videos

All images have a meaningful description, known as 'alt text', which means it is read aloud when using a screen reader, for example.

Most of our videos are uploaded to our YouTube channel and include subtitles or captions. The videos are often embedded within a web page and can be played directly without needing to leave the website.

Documents and downloads

We generally try to provide information as content on the page for the best accessibility, however documentation and downloads are mainly available in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF).

To view or print PDF documents you will need the free software Adobe Acrobat Reader. Read more about Adobe's commitment to accessibility.

Printing

Pages on this website are optimised for printing.

If you're using a keyboard, you can usually hold down Ctrl (or Command on Mac) and press P. This should open your browser's print window to select where you'd like to print to.

Refer to Apple's website for printing on an iPhone or iPad.

Also see

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