Accessibility
Victoria's Volunteering Portal is an online community and information resource for Victorian volunteers and volunteering organisations.
The website is published by the Victorian Government's Community Participation Programs unit within the Department of Planning and Community Development.
We strive to create an online community that is accessible to everyone.
Listen to this site using BrowseAloud
What is BrowseAloud?
BrowseAloud makes websites accessible to those who require online reading support. It works by reading web pages aloud in a human-sounding voice. The user simply hovers their mouse pointer over the text to hear it read aloud.
What does BrowseAloud look like?
BrowseAloud features and options are accessed from an easy to use, floating toolbar (see above). You can position this toolbar anywhere on your screen or hide from view, as you prefer.
What will BrowseAloud do for me?
- Reads web pages aloud in a human-sounding voice (Includes websites, intranets, extranets, html, accessible Flash, alt tags)
- Reads secure web pages
- Reads PDF and Word documents in their original format
- Highlights each word as it is spoken to show you where you are on the page
- Magnifies text to your chosen font size and font style
- Translates word-for-word between English, French, German, Italian and Spanish
- Looks up accurate dictionary definitions
- Converts text to MP3
- Masks information on the screen to help you focus on a particular area
Who does BrowseAloud help?
BrowseAloud helps any website visitor who requires online reading support. This includes those with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, mild visual impairments and those with English as a second language.
What Browsers does BrowseAloud work in?
BrowseAloud works with the following web browsers:
- Internet Explorer 6
- Internet Explorer 7
- Internet Explorer 8
BrowseAloud works with commonly used platforms:
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
How do I download BrowseAloud?
Download BrowseAloud from the BrowseAloud website.
If you need anymore help, contact the BrowseAloudSupport Team on:
Email: support@browsealoud.com.
Accessibility standards
This website is being designed to meet the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 AA standard.
As this is a new site, we are still actively working to increase the site's accessibility. We will be conducting a full accessibility audit on the site in June 2011 to ensure the site meets the W3C Web Content Accessibility 1.0 AA standard.
Once the Victorian Government endorses the second version of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 AA standard we will endeavour to comply with the new standard as soon as possible.
We are committed to reviewing and improving the accessibility of this website. If you have any accessibility issues, feedback or questions, please contact us.
PDFs on our site
We do not host any PDFs on our site. However, we do link to some external PDFs from our site. Often the organisations that provide these PDFs have not provided an accessible alternative. We are in the process of negotiating with these organisations to provide accessible alternatives. In the meantime, if there is a specific PDF you cannot access, please contact us using the following contact details and we will provide an accessible alternative.
Accessibility assistance
To help ensure this website is accessible, text transcripts or closed captions are provided with all video and audio content.
Where content is displayed using Flash, we also provide text alternatives.
If you need more information, would like to access any content on this website in an alternative format or need help posting a message or submitting content, please contact the web team at:
Telephone: (03) 9208 3353
Fax: (03) 9208 3632
Use our webform
Victoria's Volunteering Portal
Level 13, 1 Spring Street
Melbourne, Victoria, 3000