Making Council more accessible
09 July 2024
Council added the tool late last year during its broader website refresh as part of its focus on improving accessibility to its services.
Mayor Phill Stone said making the website more user-friendly for everyone was a key focus of the refresh.
“While our aim was to improve the experience for all of our customers, we also needed to ensure it was more accessible to those with challenges such as vision impairment, dyslexia, ADHD or learning difficulties,” Mayor Stone said.
“We hope this accessibility widget – which is now available on every page of the website – helps address some of those issues and provides a more enjoyable, barrier-free experience for all users.”
The accessibility tool is available by clicking on this icon: 
Since being introduced, the tool has been opened more than 6,500 times, with the most popular functions including:
- Highlight links (making it easier to find clickable areas of the site)
- Bigger text
- Contrast plus (creates distinct contrast between page elements)
- Screen reader
The tool also features accessibility profiles (ie colour blind, dyslexic, ADHD), which suggest particular functions based on the profile selected by the user. For example, selecting ‘visually-impaired’ turns on bigger text, legible fonts, a large cursor and high saturation. ‘Colour blind’ has been the most selected profile on the website to-date.
“We encourage people with accessibility issues to try out the tool and let us know what they think and any ways it could be improved,” Mayor Stone said.
“Also be sure to check out the broader improvements to the website, which now has simplified dropdown boxes, an upgraded search bar, social feed and a most-visited-pages section to make popular pages easier to find.”
If you have any feedback on what you like or how the website can be further improved, you can either click here, email communications@whyalla.sa.gov.au, or call 8640 3444.
The accessibility tool provides a host of options for improving users’ experience on the Whyalla City Council website.