Housing 21 launches new website

Leading housing and care provider Housing 21 has re-launched their website. The new site, which went live this week, features BrowseAloud, the leading text-to-speech solution from Texthelp Systems Ltd.

BrowseAloud reads web content aloud, highlighting each word as it is spoken. This combination greatly improves comprehension for those with literacy difficulties, dyslexia, mild visual impairments or where English is spoken as a second language.

It also includes ‘text ticker’ which magnifies text as it is spoken, helping those with low visibility. There is also a talking dictionary and the option to convert text to MP3 format. BrowseAloud will also read accessible HTML, PDF documents, hyperlinks and tags behind images.

In addition to BrowseAloud the new website has a search feature for the whole site, RSS feeds which keep the site up-to-date with sector news and a new section devoted to Housing 21 dementia Voice.

Speaking about their website, Kathryn Collinson Communications Officer for Housing 21 explains, “Our vision is a life of choice for older people. By making our website fully accessible, we will ensure that they can access the information and services they require, as well as having a choice about how they access this information.

“With the addition of BrowseAloud we hope that current customers who use our online services such as benefit enquiries and rent payment, or people looking for housing services, can easily access our information and services with the new facility.”

Housing 21’s new website can be visited at www.housing21.co.uk