Ensuring that the university web site is both usable and accessible for everyone
Bristol, UK, 10th May 2003. - Nomensa, experts at improving e-business effectiveness through humanising design today announced the completion of a usability and accessibility programme for the University of Nottingham.
The programme involved a series of usability tests, an accessibility audit and an expert review by a screen reader user. The objective was to ensure that new templates developed by the university web team were both usable and accessible before they were deployed across the whole university web site. This was a critical time to carry out such work as the university is preparing to launch a new content management system. Complying with SENDA legislation and providing a great user experience for students and staff alike are top priorities.
Alastair Campbell, Director of Research & Development at Nomensa, commented:
"Universities are leading the way in terms of accessibility compliance and great efforts are being made across the UK to comply with legislation and make information accessible to people with disabilities. The University of Nottingham has made extensive efforts in this area and this project validated new templates and ensured that they were usable for users before they were implemented as part of a site wide content management system."
Nomensa tested the templates against the WAI guidelines (the international benchmark for accessibility) and tested a number of prospective students using the web site to ensure that it is easy to use.
Tony Scott, university web editor commented,
"The University of Nottingham are very keen to ensure that the templates and site designs being developed for our new Content Management System are both accessible and usable. Working with Nomensa has proved to be very useful in this respect. Nomensa's work is allowing us to proceed with the confidence that new sites implemented under CMS will comply with the SENDA legislation and provide a quality user experience."
This project is a further demonstration of how Nomensa are committed to empowering the educational sector to make usable and accessible web technology.
