accessibility statement

Midlands Co-operative is committed to providing a web site that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of ability or technology and including those who have visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments.

The Co-operative’s core values of democracy, equality, equity and solidarity recognise that the Internet has changed the way we work and communicate. At Midlands Co-operative we are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our web site and in doing so, aim to meet our legal obligations under the UK Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

Web Accessibility Initiative

This web site endeavours to conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. The Accessibility Guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance to these Guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users. There may be some pages that do not conform to all the guidelines. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the whole site conforms, this is an ongoing process and older content may not yet reach the standards in all areas.

W3C Validation Service

This web site is built using code compliant with W3C standards for XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
W3C is the governing authority on web development standards and practices.

Increasing text size

If you find the text on this site is too small, you can change it easily in your browser settings. To do this you should simply adjust your browser's settings.

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to the View menu, select Text Size and then either Larger or Largest.
If you use Netscape Navigator, go to the View menu and choose Increase Font until the text is the size you require.

Changing colours

Changing the site's background colour can be particularly useful for users who rely on magnification technology as white can produce an uncomfortable glare. It is also possible to change the colour of body text on the site. Both can be achieved by changing preferences in your browser:

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to the Tools menu, select Internet Options, select Colours and make changes to text and background colours in the Colours panel.
If you use Netscape Navigator, go to the Edit menu, select Preferences, open the Appearance menu and select Colours. You can set the colour of text and background from here.

Images

All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Those in purely decorative graphics or used for layout include null ALT attributes.

Visual Design

This site uses CSS for visual layout. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.

Useful Links

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
Disability Discrimination Act http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/1995050.htm
Disability Rights Commission (DRC) http://www.drc-gb.org
BBC Accessibility Guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility

The site aims to achieve overall compliance with the Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI) guidelines.