Website Accessibility Testing

Sandwell Valley Country Park.

Designing an inclusive website to improve usability and create a positive user experience for a public country park website.

Sandwell Valley Country Park is a visitor services and public country park in the borough of Sandwell in the West Midlands. It is a primary attraction for its residents and surrounding Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley Borough, and Coventry. The goal of the council behind the collaboration with our team was to build a website that is inclusive and accessible for all their visitors. We worked alongside the council to help them raise the standard of their online accessibility.

Creating a Positive Impact With Accessible Web Design.

In the initial stage of the project, our designers worked with developers and accessibility engineers to craft an accessible web design structure. Our accessible web design considerations led to improvements in the visitor experience. For the People with Disabilities, such improvements were essential for equal access. However, our accessibility solutions could also help people in various scenarios:

Individuals use mobile phones, smartwatches and other small-screen devices.
Adults facing challenges due to ageing.
People in situations like bright, glaring sunlight or noising environments.
Temporary disabilities such as broken eye frames or arms.
People with slow internet connectivity issues.

Our accessibility auditors tested several different iterations of the website. By the next stage, we could update the accessibility statement, stating that the website was fully compliant with WCAG 2.2 level AA standards. The website achieved a higher accessibility standard, aligning with UK Government requirements.

Accessibility Results.

The website is now live, and we are thrilled that the accessibility results are meeting the council’s expectations. It has been a challenging project, but it has also been rewarding and proof positive of what we can achieve if we desire to have the highest possible accessibility standard!

The organic traffic increased 9.86%.
Users could use transcripts in noisy environments.
Better understanding for visitors who use English as a second language.

We used Google Analytics to capture the following data:

7.23% increase in visitors.
Unique visitors increased by 8.18%.

Our continuous accessibility auditing of the web pages ensures the Sandwell Valley Country Park website is accessible to extensive demographics and aligns with the highest accessibility standards.