We're committed to making our website accessible to the widest range of people.
If you have any comments or suggestions about how we can improve this website's accessibility or if you have any difficulty using any part of it, please email us at info@whittlesea.vic.gov.au or call 9217 2170
We frequently review webpages that may cause issues for people with visual, auditory, motor or cognitive disabilities, or those with slow internet speeds or portable devices.
There may be some older pages and/or pages on our website developed by third-parties that are not fully compliant with our accessibility standards.
We have designed this website with usability and accessibility best practices in mind. We aim to meet or exceed the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 to AA level.
For more information and a conformance level checklist, visit the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website.
All our website code is validated by validator.w3.org according to relevant doctypes when launched, to increase reliable rendering across all browsers, to enable faster downloads and for easier navigation for screen readers.
All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. Separation of structure (HTML), presentation (CSS) and behaviour (JavaScript) is practiced where possible.
All Council-created content on Council-managed social media accounts aims to meet WCAG requirements.
However, we cannot guarantee the accessibility of user-generated content on Council social media accounts - for example, images or video uploaded by a community member without an accessible text caption or transcript.
For more information on standards-compliant browsers, visit The Web Standards Project or the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Some documents on this site are not available as webpages, in particular many of our forms and maps. Instead they are published in non-HTML formats - such as Adobe PDF and Microsoft Word - that may not be accessible to everyone, particularly screen reader users.
We provide an accessible summary of all non-HTML documents, including the type and size of the file. This allows you to decide whether the document will be useful to you. You will also find contact details so you can request the document in another format.
If you are using a screen reader, we recommend you avoid downloading our document forms and simply call us instead.
To view or print PDF documents, you will need to have the Adobe Acrobat software installed. If you do not have the software, you can download it free from Adobe Systems Incorporated.
We acknowledge that PDF is not the most accessible format and are working to reduce the number of PDFs on this website.
We prioritise the creation of accessible content based on criteria including the size and specialist nature of the audience for the content, how time-consuming or technically difficult it is to create accessible versions and the likely lifespan of the content.
Consultants who provide Council with a document to be published online must follow these instructions to ensure the document is accessible to people with a disability.
Most fonts on this website use relative font sizing rather than fixed font sizing. This allows you to increase the text size within your browser to make reading pages easier.
To change the text size:
To improve your internet experience you are able to select a personalised colour contrast by following the steps below, depending on your chosen browser.
To turn off images to enable faster internet speeds - or just because you prefer to view webpages without images - follow these quick and easy steps below depending on your chosen browser.
We have added a text description to each meaningful image on this website and/or tags. This will help screen readers and visitors who browse the internet with images turned off.
We have applied a number of accessibility features across the website including:
All online forms are built with accessibility in mind, including:
Most content pages on our website are optimised for printing offline, and are specifically designed for hard copy and readability.
The navigation menus and other design elements will be removed, the text will wrap to the page margins, and the font face is updated ready for printing.
This will be supported in all browsers that accept print stylesheets and will help those who prefer to read articles offline and/or cannot read them on a computer monitor.
It may be necessary to enable the printing of background images in your print settings if you want to closely replicate the on-screen layout. However, web graphics are generally poorly suited to printing.
While we do our best to support users with older internet browsers, some of our online/electronic resources are enhanced by the use of modern standards-compliant browsers that have both JavaScript and cookies enabled.
There are now several great browsers to choose from apart from Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, many of which are designed to run on older PCs or Macs.
Running modern, standards-compliant browsers allows the user to access resources, materials and the World Wide Web as it was originally intended. Where possible, we develop support for web browsers according to W3C and WCAG.