Help
Help for the Brüggen Municipality Website
We have created an innovative and most of all barrier-free website for you with great dedication and lots of ideas.
In order to ensure that you reap the greatest possible benefits from enhanced accessibility, help on the adaptation and use of our website is provided here.
1. Overview
In addition to the homepage, our website also includes the following sections: Council and Administration, Tourism and Culture, Family and Living, Economy and “My Brüggen”.
Some of the content is also offered in Dutch. You can change your choice of language using the flags at the top of the page. Once you select a language, this setting is retained for future visits to brueggen.de until you change it.
Homepage
The homepage includes the latest news from all departments as well as links to other recent reports.
Among other things, the list of service links includes a link to the “Emergencies” page with telephone numbers for the police, fire brigade, ambulance and so on.
Under additional information, you will find a list of “frequently visited pages” and links to current events.
You will also find the address and telephone number of the municipal administration here. A link to “My Brüggen”, which contains all interactive offerings, is found on the homepage as well.
Council and Adminstration
This area represents the “virtual town hall” of Brüggen.
It explains the structure and responsibilities of departments and government bodies as well as offering basic information about the mayor and municipal politics.
The alphabetical listing under “Services from A to Z” and the topical structure under “What do to where” are particularly helpful.
If you don’t know who to contact with your inquiry, look for valuable assistance here. A comprehensive news page is also provided in this area under “News”.
Tourism & Culture
Here you will find information of interest to locals and tourists alike. An overview of the town’s history, information on museums and places of interest as well as numerous recreational and cultural offerings.
Should you fail to find what you are looking for, take a look under “Family & Living”. Many of the permanent municipal services are, of course, also of interest to visitors.
Family & Living
This area is mainly aimed at the citizens and full-time residents of Brüggen.
This is where many questions are answered and options are identified in regards to everyday life: From kindergarten placements and the closest school or church to public safety and order.
Under “Associations”, you will find the appropriate information from our interactive “My Brüggen” offering sorted by topics. More about “My Brüggen” is found below in this document.
If you cannot find what you are looking for in this section, take a look under “Tourism and Culture” since some overlap is unavoidable here.
For those who want to become citizens of Brüggen, information on new building areas is found here.
Economy
The purpose of the “Economy” section is to connect citizens of Brüggen who are looking for goods or services with the corresponding supplier.
This is where you will find information from “My Brüggen” related to commercial enterprises, classified in categories that are partly based on conventional industry classifications.
Information on associations, doctors, accommodations etc. is available under the corresponding menu items such as “Family & Living / Associations”.
2. Formal Structure
This section is of particular interest to the users of devices who, because of the technology they are using, are limited in perceiving the appearance of the page and view the content in linearised form.
The pages of the Brüggen website consist of three vertical columns below a horizontal header.
The key element of the header is the main navigation menu. Essential elements of the first column from the left are the search function and navigation menu for the section that has been selected from the main navigation menu. The second (centre) column contains the content itself, the right column various additional information. Some pages do not have additional information.
Users who cannot use a mouse have the option of selecting the main navigation menu, content area in the second column and the additional information directly.
The Header
The main navigation menu contains links to the homepage and the four main sections “Council & Administration”, “Tourism and Culture”, “Family and Life” and “Economy”. Please see the “Overview” section of this introduction for more information.
In addition to the main navigation menu, the header includes links to adjust the font size, change the layout and select the language version. Changes to the settings remain in effect until they are replaced by new settings.
You can restore the original font size by selecting “Reset” and the standard layout is called “Layout”. In order for your browser to remember your settings, the option to allow cookies to be saved on your computer must be activated. This is the default setting on most systems.
The Left-Hand Column
The first element of the left-hand column on all pages is the input field for the search function. On the homepage this is followed by a list of service links that take you to particularly important information, including this help section.
Among these, the “Emergencies” page with telephone numbers for the police, fire brigade, ambulance etc. is particularly important.
On the sub-pages, the search field is followed by the navigation menu for that section and then by the service links. Some sub-pages are divided further. The entire list of sub-pages remains accessible in all cases.
The Centre Column
The layout of the content area varies depending on the content: It may contain links to other information, longer texts, indexes and tables.
Illustrations in this area often merely serve to visually segment the text and are not always explained by alternative texts.
The Right-Hand- Column
Additional information mainly consists of information about the respective section or sub-page that remains unchanged for extended periods of time. In many cases, this includes the addresses and hours of operation of departments or the names and telephone numbers of employees.
References to current events or pages with supplementary information may also be found here in certain cases.
3. For People with Disabilities
The brueggen.de website was developed with the goal of making the content accessible to the largest possible number of potential visitors.
This applies to the technical side as well as the content: All employees preparing texts are asked to express themselves as clearly and concisely as possible while avoiding officialese.
From a technical perspective, great emphasis was placed on meeting the needs of common devices such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, special keyboards without pointing devices etc.
The requirements of people who merely suffer from certain visual impairments but can otherwise use a computer without special devices were also taken into account.
Font Size Adjustment
Visitors suffering from visual impairments have various options to adapt the appearance of the website to their special requirements.
In particular, the font size can be adjusted within certain parameters. A framework of 12 small increments upward and 4 downward was established based on the goal that the words should not be longer than the width of the column in which they are displayed. On the other hand, the letters should also be at least 6 or 7 pixels in size since their shape cannot be displayed properly otherwise.
In many cases, the readability of pages – for example for older people – can be improved significantly with an adjustment of just 1 to 3 increments. Anyone requiring greater magnification than 12 increments can achieve this through the corresponding browser settings. Since this can cause words to overlap or be cut off, using one of the other layouts (“linearised” or “special”) is recommended in this case.
Shrinking the font size is needed much more seldom than magnification. It can be useful for people with a small field of vision or the inability to move their head, especially when it is combined with a reduced display width of approximately 450 pixels.
Both settings are saved automatically and will be automatically applied each subsequent time you access brueggen.de until they are reset. The application of the selected settings from one visit to the next only works if the user has permitted the use of cookies. This is the default setting on most systems.
Layouts
The “View” option which allows you to select one of several layouts is found in the top-right corner of each page. The default setting is “Standard”, black font on a white or light grey background with green headings.
“High Contrast” offers the reverse, with a white font on a black background, and the headings are also white. Highlighting is applied in fluorescent yellow. While the font size remains unchanged, it can be adjusted at any time using the font size adjustment feature or the corresponding browser settings.
“Linearised” retains the colour settings of the original layout, but all elements that otherwise appear next to each other in two or three columns are now displayed in sequence from top to bottom. This setting allows an almost unlimited increase in the font size without causing words to overlap or be cut off.
This means even people suffering from severe visual impairments can still read the content. In this view, the links for menu items are extended across the entire width of the display so that the mouse does not have to be moved between the scroll bar on the right and the navigation elements on the left all the time. In addition, the default font setting for this layout is slightly larger compared to the “Standard” layout.
This layout is recommended in cases where the contrast and colour settings, which can be highly customised under Accessibility Options / Display in Windows, cause display problems.
Keyboard Users
All contents of the pages are also accessible using only the keyboard without a mouse or other pointing device.
The pages consist of two main areas, each of which begins with a level 1 heading (H1): A technical area, which contains all setting options and the navigation menu, and the content area with content and additional information.
In order to shorten long paths, the user has the option at the beginning of each page to jump directly to the content, main navigation menu or additional information within this sequence. These jump links are only visible to users surfing with some type of keyboard. The search, page navigation and service links follow immediately after the main navigation menu. Therefore these four elements form a contiguous navigation block. Since each of these elements has its own (invisible) heading, device users can also jump easily from one to another.
The rarely-used elements to adjust the font size and choose the language are found in the header before the first jump point so they are also easy to reach. All links or input fields that have focus (meaning they can be activated by clicking or pressing “Enter”) are highlighted in colour so that the focus position is always readily apparent to all users.
Screen Readers
The consistent structure of the pages in the two main areas, “Settings and Navigation” and “Content”, each of which starts with an H1 heading, also benefits screen reader users and allows them to navigate throughout the page by merely pressing a few keys. Of course you can also hear and use the jump links which are invisible to normal users.
In order to keep the number of links on the pages low since screen reader users also utilise them to navigate, double links for references based on the pattern “heading, introductory text, link to read more” were avoided. The link is normally on the “read more” entry. Where it was put on the heading for content-related or technical reasons, the “read more” link is omitted. All screen readers have an option to jump back from a text to the preceding link, e.g. with Shift+U in case of Jaws.
Alternative texts are perceived as problematic by many screen reader users because they may disrupt the reading flow and are often difficult to acoustically distinguish from the main text. This is why alternative texts were not included for pictures that are low in relevant content and often merely used as bullet points within a list. Graphic elements such as arrows that point out links etc. generally do not include alternative texts since the screen reader points these elements out in other ways.
4. Interactive Applications: My Brüggen
Here you have the option of sending the electronic version of our “Yellow Card” to the mayor under “My Opinion”. The “Yellow Card” is a suggestion and complaint form.
In order to keep the brueggen.de site as current and informative as possible, we also offer two comprehensive interactive applications to our citizens: The events calendar and the Brüggen company and organisation directory. Both applications are as informative and useful in terms of content as our users choose to make them. We merely provide the technology platform.
Event Calendar
The event calendar allows associations, departments, church institutions, cultural institutions and market organisers to publicise their events in Brüggen. This events calendar is open to everyone.
Data Entry
You can contribute to the events calendar under “My Brüggen – Submit Event”. Access to this page is unrestricted. The information that is entered is verified by us and published on the website upon approval.
Please be aware that we normally required one working day for verification and publication. We also ask that you provide sufficient contact information so that our administrators can consult you if required.
The number of mandatory fields (marked with an asterisk) was kept low on purpose. However, your entry will be more valuable to website visitors if you provide comprehensive information. Please check the venue information in order to make sure that people who have not lived in Brüggen for 30 years or travel a certain route to work every day are also able to understand it.
Specifying the category correctly is also very important. You can only select one category. If an event fits more than one category, for example in case of a youth sports meet, please select one main category and include the details in the description.
Output
The events calendar is output in several ways: First and foremost, it is displayed in the form of a list under “My Brüggen / Show Events” where all current events for the current and upcoming months are always shown.
Certain events are also displayed in the additional information sections of various department pages or sub-pages. Dates for council and committee meetings as well as political events are found on the “Council & Administration – Municipal Politics” page, cultural events under “Tourism and Culture”, sports events under “Tourism and Culture – Recreation”, youth events under “Family & Living – Youth” and so on.
This only works if you select the right category for all submissions.
A noteworthy output option is found under the menu item “My Brüggen – Export Events”. Here you can select a time period and determine which categories to include. The export uses the CSV format which can be read and processed with many other programmes.
Directory of Brüggen Companies and Organisations
The directory currently contains more than 1500 entries. Most of them are for commercial enterprises in the retail, trade and production sectors as well as service providers in Brüggen. The directory output is accessible to all website visitors while input is only possible for registered users.
You can create a user account under “My Brüggen – My Page” in order to participate in our “Directory of Brüggen Companies and Organisations” and add additional information to your article. This also applies to organisations other than companies. Listings in this directory are free for all organisations in Brüggen.
For more information, please visit the special help section under “My Brüggen – My Page – Instructions”.