Site Help
Spacer
Site Help

This page provides an overview of how to find information on the Hurstville City Council website by using both the search and navigation features.

Global Navigation System

Global navigation hyperlinks can be found at the top and bottom of every page. The global navigation system provides access to common items such as contact details, legal information and feedback mechanisms.

Site Search

One of the easiest ways to find information on the Hurstville City Council website is to use the site search facility. This can also be found within the global navigation system - in the top-right-hand corner of every page.

Type your search term or phrase in the text field provided and click on the button next to the search field. The search engine will search through pages, files and meta-tags throughout the website for your query term/s and present you with a page of results.

Quickfind

Another simple way to find information quickly is to use the "Quickfind" menu, located above to the Site Search facility at the top of every page. We analyse our website statistics in order to find out exactly what users are looking for and place those items in the Quickfind menu for fast and easy access. . "Quickfind" lists our most popular and frequently view items/pages.

Main Navigation System

You will find the Main Navigation System on the Home page of this site. If your browser is equipped with scripting support, the Main Navigation System will take the form of a dynamic drop-down menu that will give you immediate access to all areas of the site.

If scripting support is unavailable or disabled on your browser, you will be presented with an alternative non-dynamic menu system from which you can still easily access any information.

Local Navigation System

Local navigation systems are - as the name suggests - local to the particular area you are currently browsing. Local navigation hyperlinks can be found on the left-hand-side of the page and can be used to navigate the pages of the sub-web you are in.

Site Fonts

The standard font used is sans-serif (Verdana or Arial) at 100 per cent. If you would like to change the display font size you can do this by adjusting the preferences in your browser, or "Text size" hyperlink found the footer of each page.

Applications and Plug-Ins

There are a number of applications that you may find useful in order to fully experience the resources available on this site:

  • Adobe Acrobat Reader
    We use PDF (portable document format) files for documents that are either too long or otherwise unsuitable for presentation as web pages. Examples include forms, publications and newsletters. To view PDF files, we recommend that you download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Viewer, available free from Adobe Systems Inc.
  • WinZip
    WinZip is a useful utility for expanding files archived or compressed in .zip, .tar, and many other formats. Available for Windows only, a demonstration version of WinZip is available for download from WinZip Computing, Inc.
  • Macromedia Flash Player
    Flash has been used to create a number of engaging, interactive and functional elements within our website. Where possible, we have also provided alternative ways of accessing the same information. To view Flash-enabled elements, we recommend that you download the latest version of Flash Player, available for free from Macromedia Inc.

Site Requirements

Users will encounter technical problems if they are not accessing the Web with a standards-compliant browser. The Hurstville City Council website was designed with fairly strict adherence to W3C specifications, and with accessibility in mind.

For optimum use, we recommend using a standards-compliant browser, that renders HTML and CSS according to W3C specifications. These browsers include, but are not limited to Netscape 6.x and newer, Internet Explorer 5.x and newer, Opera 5.x and newer, and Mozilla (all builds).

These browsers have passed quality assurance tests on all contemporary Macintosh and Windows operating systems (OS8, 9, and X, as well as 98, 2000, NT, and XP respectively). Mozilla is also available for Unix users, and Linux users have Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and even Konqueror as options.

Accessibility Standards

The Hurstville City Council website has been designed to work well across different browsers (including voice output and Braille browsers). Download times have also been reduced to assist users with limited bandwidth capabilities.

Hurstville City Council has implemented the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Standards and Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Guidelines for accessible web page design by people with disabilities. The W3C provides an extensive set of criteria, and a site must comply with all Priority 1, 2 and 3 checkpoints to receive the AAA rating.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS 1)
CSS benefits accessibility primarily by separating document structure from presentation, so that the site can be viewed uniformly on different browsers, including text and special needs browsers. Websites designed using a linked style sheet will also load quickly as they have the potential to be quite small file sizes.

Usability
Through years of research and interaction with users, Jakob Nielsen has developed a series of principles for web design that allow people to find the information they're looking for quickly and to access it in a logical manner. His recommendations for "Designing Web Usability" include an emphasis on web page design that incorporates:

  • use of plain language
  • simplicity
  • content that can be"scanned" or "skimmed" over
  • consistent, clear navigation

Hurstville City Council is committed to achieving these goals and we would value your feedback on how usable you find this website.

"Printer Friendly" Pages

Due to the different versions of browsers and operating systems available (eg. OS8, OS9, Windows 98, 2000, NT, XP), you might find that you are unable to print pages from the website within your printer's margins. To ensure you print a correct version of the page, select the "Printer Friendly" hyperlink at the footer of each page.

Site designed and developed by: CreativEngine.