Amaxus automatically helps ensure your websites comply with the DDA
Box UK has unparalleled experience in developing W3C/Government compliant websites, adhering to global industry standards and guidelines. Amaxus, Box UK's XML content management system, enables your sites to automatically comply with the Disability and Discrimination Act, 1995 (DDA).
The DDA effectively places responsibility upon suppliers of goods and services to provide reasonable adjustment and, importantly, to remove any barriers that could result in discrimination. Since 1999 the DDA has covered public facing websites and internal systems.
Box UK implemented the first UK government website to be fully XML and XSL driven, enabled through a bespoke Content Management System. The Virtual Teacher Centre (VTC) site also conforms to WAI accessibility guidelines, and implements advanced accessibility features such as keyboard shortcuts and a dynamic text-only version.
Since the VTC, Box UK has continued to develop and promote government and W3C standards, through close interaction with our clients. The TRE (see resources below), a sister site to the VTC, employs the power of XML to output the site to seven different channels, including an XML feed for the governments £300 million+ Curriculum Online project (for which Box UK also developed the primary metadata-entry application).
The National Maritime Museum site, developed to NOF and e-GIF standards through Box UK’s Amaxus Content Management System, has recently won two highly-regarded accessibility awards, and is currently short-listed for a third.
The Amaxus Content Management System is fully configured to support government and industry (W3C) standards, and has been developed with an extensible architecture (XML, XSL, Web services) to allow the adherence to future standards.
Government Policy Framework for Electronic Records Management
Amaxus provides the capability for the implementation of an effective electronic records management infrastructure in accordance with Central Government’s e-government policy framework for electronic records management.
Documents entered into the CMS are assigned Dublin Core metadata, which includes auditing, copyright and relation information. Documents are indexed on these metadata fields, together with a full-text index for the main document content.
Documents are placed into the CMS workflow system, which facilitates an approval/archiving mechanism, together with automatic removal/publication functionality.
All documents can be fully exported as XML (either through the CMS, or natively through the SQL Server application), allowing the migration of documents without loss of information.
Amaxus and Accessibility
- Compliance with W3C guidelines.
- Uses W3C technologies.
- The core XML structure allows dynamic output of content to multiple devices (e.g. PDA, WebTV, Mobile phone etc)
- Multiple output versions – automatically created low-graphics/text-only version (can meet W3C AAA standards).
- XHTML option. No low-graphics/text-only version required.
- Automatic alt text applied to uploaded images.
- When using Flash, alternative images can be specified for users without the plug-in.
- Links that open in a new window can be easily be labelled across the entire site following W3C accessibility guidelines.
- No reliance on JavaScript or other inaccessible technologies.
- Does not override users chosen link and background colours or their font sizes.
- Use hierarchies of heading tags to represent various levels of headings to aid text to speech browsers. Similarly, other sections can be marked up semantically, including menus as list blocks.
- Uses innovative methods for features to ensure that even complex functionality remains accessible. An example of this being the Amaxus Zoom Tool which is one of the only zoom tool offerings to be accessible to all browsers without any need for a plug-in.
- Provides equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content – transcript and caption fields.
- Can force CMS users to not rely on colour alone to convey or differentiate information.
- Can force CMS users to always use high contrast between text and background colour.
- Uses mark-up and style sheets, as per W3C Guidelines.
- Identifies rows and column headers in tables.
- Advanced accessibility features such as access keys can be easily implemented.
- Groups related links semantically.
- Provides accessible anchor links to skip sections (e.g. groups of links).
- Automatically generates site map and other navigation tools.
- Provides different levels of searching for different skill levels (e.g. free text, advanced, metadata threading, wizards etc).
- Provides a dynamic breadcrumb trail to represent the user’s position within the site.
- Enables organisation to easily create a style of presentation that is consistent across all pages.
- Includes a glossary module to explain unknown terms or acronyms.
Web Accessibility Awards
Jodi Mattes Award
National Maritime Museum wins award for most accessible museum website of the year – www.nmm.ac.uk
The National Maritime Museum was presented today with the Jodi Mattes Access Award for the most accessible museum website of the year 2003, which is also the European Year of Disabled People. The Award for usability and content accessibility was made by the Museum Computer Group, the UK’s national forum for museum, gallery, archive and related professionals who work with computers, new technologies and new media.
The National Maritime Museum’s website was re-launched in October 2002, with design and technical build by BoxUK, and provides on-line access to over 7000 items relating to seafaring, navigation, astronomy and time measurement. A clear layout, using text alternatives for non-text elements, and a low-graphics version of the site are used to help achieve high standards of accessibility for all.
Roy Clare, Director of the National Maritime Museum said: ‘The National Maritime Museum, with the Royal Observatory Greenwich, aims to illustrate the importance of the sea, ships, time and the stars, and their relationship to people. We hold the world’s largest collections in these subject areas and we are striving to make the objects and research materials available to learners and users across the community at home and abroad. Our website plays a vital role in this process, with many thousands of items already accessible and more being added continually. These on-line resources, which cater for all ages, tastes and interests, are being used by millions of people each year. We are absolutely delighted that our efforts to provide a high quality service have been recognised in this award.’
Aileen O’Riordan, Online Projects Manager said: ‘The re-launch of the website in 2002 gave the Museum a great opportunity to address the needs of all its audiences and to rethink the way that it delivers content to them. Our work towards greater web accessibility is an on-going process and this year developments include an improved low-graphics version and the addition of standard keyboard shortcuts for ‘Collections Online’. We are delighted that this award has recognized our commitment to providing greater access to the Museum’s rich and varied collections.’
‘Collections Online’ provides public access to the on-going project of cataloguing and digitising the National Maritime Museum’s collections, including oil paintings, globes, sundials, quadrants, prints and drawings, timekeepers, map and charts and ceramics. This ever-growing resource currently provides access to over 4500 objects and 6500 images from the edged weapon, jewellery, ceramics, firearm and commemorative medal and coin collections. You can visit ‘Collections Online’ at www.nmm.ac.uk/collections.
Other nominations for the Jodi Mattes Access Award included London’s Transport Museum, the National Gallery and Tate. Judges included representatives from Leicester University, MAGDA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MCG, RNIB and Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.
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Notes to Editors
1. The National Maritime Museum - the largest and most important museum of its kind in the world - is housed in impressively modernized historic buildings forming part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. It incorporates the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, (home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian Line) and 17th-century Queen’s House (England's first classical building and a rare surviving example of the work of Inigo Jones). Further information available at www.nmm.ac.uk.
2. The Jodi Mattes Access Award is named in memory of Jodi Mattes (1973-2001). Jodi worked at the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the British Museum. One of her greatest achievements was to ensure that the British Museum's COMPASS website was accessible to all. She developed a text-only version of COMPASS, organised testing of the system by blind and partially sighted users, worked with the system developers on changes informed by the testing process and specified visitor desks accessible to wheelchair users. She also worked on accessible text descriptions, which has fed into the development of content on children's COMPASS. Jodi's work has inspired other museums and galleries to develop accessible websites.
3. Established in 1998, Box UK is an Internet Consultancy that provides expertise in both creative and technical aspects of the Internet. Clients include blue chip giants like Chubb and the band, UB40. Box UK is especially well known for implementing its high-level content management systems. Its expertise in providing solutions for handling high volumes of data makes Box UK particularly well suited digital partner for a museum.
Visionary Design Award – RNLB & sponsored by Barclays
The winners were chosen on the basis of a high level of accessibility for all forms of access technology including screen magnification through software or browser settings, audio screen readers and refreshable Braille output. Winners were also selected based on the experience that a visually impaired user may have confronting the site for the first time and the value of the information available on the site.
NLB estimates that less than a third of websites are accessible to visually impaired people, making the winners of these Awards truly revolutionary in what they have achieved. The Awards are part of an ongoing campaign by the National Library for the Blind (NLB) to encourage website publishers and designers to consider access technology such as magnification, text to speech and refreshable Braille when they are designing their sites.
Document Index
See Also
Virtual Teacher Centre (VTC)