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The Blind Centre for Northern Ireland

About the Blind Centre of Northern Ireland
Overview of Project
Project Findings
Project Recommendations
Results
Reference

About the Blind Centre of Northern Ireland

The Blind Centre for Northern Ireland is a local society, established in 1978 providing direct services to blind and visually impaired people of all ages across Northern Ireland. Their aim is to enhance the quality of life for blind and visually impaired people through 4 strands of service provision :

Direct Services

Homecall is a home visiting and befriending service run by 10 Field Staff in partnership with local Health & Social Services staff operating in 28 Provincial towns. In 2002 our staff made over 1400 Homecall visits to mainly elderly blind and partially sighted people.

Homecall is a free service to older people with severe sight loss and provides a valuable service to blind and partially sighted people living in the community.

Leisure

A purpose-built, colour-coded, fully equipped Holiday Chalet at the SHARE Village in Co. Fermanagh. It provides holiday opportunities for families, groups or individuals. The Chalet is 1600 sq ft and can accommodate up to 12 people. A Braille diagram of the SHARE Village is available in the Chalet. Guide dogs are welcome. TV, video and audio equipment available.

Communications

List of Tape Publications:
Ulster Tatler
Farm Week
Life Times
Ulster Homes
Waterfront Concert Hall Programme
Northern Woman
Sports Review
History Ireland
Soundvision Ulster
Northern Ireland TV Listings
The MS Mag (N I Multiple Sclerosis Society Quarterly)
Ulster Countrywoman
Wider World
Sunday Life
DCFI News
North Belfast Talking Newspapers



Overview of Project

This Project required the Blind Centre of Northern Ireland website to be thoroughly tested for accessibility and usability issues.

This was carried out through a manual analysis of the Blind Centre of Northern Ireland website against the WAI guidelines and Usability guidelines, whereupon recommendations were made and the site was re-coded to ensure it was W3C compliant and user friendly.

In addition to this, further testing was carried out through real user testing.

Project Findings

It was found that the website contravened a number of usability and accessibility guidelines:

1- The site did not pass WAI Priority compliancy and was therefore not accessible- anything more to add- An example of a defect was the fact that online forms were incorrectly coded

2- Users found it difficult to find certain information within the website as links were not easily identified

3- An example of one of the User Test performed can be viewed by clicking on the links below

Click here to download BCNI test Part 1 (2,616 KB)
Click here to download BCNI test Part 2 (8,030 KB)
Click here to download BCNI test Part 3 (4,318 KB)

Project Recommendations

Based on the findings from the thorough accessibility and usability testing, Elemental Creative Ltd recommended that the findings of the report be implemented into the website, so that the website could be both accessible and usable.

Results

The findings from the report were implemented into the website to ensure it was compliant to WAI guidelines and Usability Guidelines.

Click on this link to go to the newly redesigned website

Reference

To be completed!

© Accessible Ireland 2007