Sheffield Homes website wins top accessibility award
Sheffield Homes has become one of only a handful of organisations across the UK to win a top accessibility award for its website.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind’s (RNIB) See it Right Standard tests extremely high standards of accessibility and usability for people with a visual impairment or other disability.
Sheffield Homes is one of only 40 organisations in the country to have the standard and is the first Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) to achieve it. The Company, which manages 48,000 council homes, provides a wide range of services for its customers online, including information about repairs, rents and home improvements.
Over 1,000 web pages were reviewed and improved as part of the audit, which is carried out by an experienced RNIB consultant.
The See it Right Standard represents an organisation’s commitment to best practice in website accessibility so users can be confident that they can access the site regardless of ability or technology used.
Developed over three years, the audit checkpoints are taken from the Website Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines, which are the globally accepted standard for website accessibility.
“We know how important it is for websites to be accessible and, where possible, externally accredited, so we’re delighted with this achievement,” said Simon Richards, Assistant Director of Business Development at Sheffield Homes.
“However, we won’t be complacent. To keep the award, we have to maintain this high standard and will be audited annually by the RNIB to ensure we do.”
The Sheffield Homes website was established when the Company was formed in April 2004. In 2006 it had almost 900,000 hits in total and so far this year is getting almost 100,000 hits a month.
For more information about the See it Right Standard visit www.rnib.org.uk
The Sheffield Homes website can be found at www.sheffieldhomes.org.uk