Accessibility
This is page describes the accessibility and usability standards we aim to achieve to help you get the best out of using this site.
Accessibility toolbar
We have placed an accessibility toolbar at the top of every page of theis site. This allows users quick access to some of the accessibility tyools that they can use on this site. You can view a text only version of the site, link to free screenreader software, increase / decrease the font size and change the default language settings.
Text only and font resizing
Use the text only link in the accessibility toolbar at the top of every page to view a text only version of the site. You can also change the font size using the Standard Text | Large Text | Extra Large Text links.
Assistance with files
This site enable users to upload and download files in various formats. To assist you with accessing these files we have listed below of commonly used file types and links to the appropriate readers.
-
Adobe PDF files Adobe's online PDF to HTML converter
-
Microsoft Word files Word Viewer 2003
-
Microsoft PowerPoint files PowerPoint Viewer 2003
-
Microsoft Excel files Excel Viewer 2003, and
-
Microsoft Visio files Visio Viewer 2002.
Links to accessibility references, software and services
To help you get the best out of using this site we have listed below links to accessibility references, software and services.
Accessibility references
-
W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline
-
W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline
-
W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility, and
-
U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
Accessibility software
-
JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available
-
Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available
-
Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays
-
Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth, and
-
Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user stylesheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.
Accessibility services
-
Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
-
HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
-
Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
-
Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.
Standards compliance
We aim to ensure that this site complies with relevant accessibility criteria, such as the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We will provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content. We will also ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without color. We will use markup and style sheets, ensuring that tags are used for main titles, tags for subtitles (and so on), with presentation being handled through the appropriate usage of stylesheets.
Visual design
We use style sheet technolog for visual layout. This is an efficient way of working that helps us to organise and update websites in the easiest way.
We ensure that the use of tables for layout is kept to a bare minimum, as evidence strongly suggests that tables are less user friendly.
We use only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers, to help make sure the text is as easy as possible to read.
We aim to ensure that if a user has a browser that does not support stylesheets, then the content of each page should still be readable.
Image use
We aim to include textual alternatives for image content. These are known as alt tags. Using these ensures that people using screen readers who are often visually impaired are also made aware of the pages image content.
