Accessibility

Accessibility is about helping people with visual, auditory, physical or other disabilities to use and interact with the Web, to remove barriers allowing them equal opportunities and ensuring they are not disadvantaged.

We have tried to adhere to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines to improve access to information on our website for everyone. Our website has been tested by Wave's accessibility tool and it has successfully passed Level AA Conformance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0



To visit the WAI website see the link on the right of this page.

Below are some of the improvements we have made:

Layout

• Style sheets used to control layout, presentation and consistent style across the whole website

• Foreground and background colour combinations provide sufficient contrast

• Supplemented text with graphics to facilitate comprehension of the page

• Used clear and simple language appropriate for the site's content and specified the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs

• Divided large blocks of information into more manageable sections and communicated key information at the top of the page

• Clearly identify changes to the natural language of a document's text through the use of headings 

• Clearly identified related content and links

• Included metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites

Navigation

To help visitors to find the information they require as easily as possible we have included a number of different ways to navigate the website:

• Navigational links to all articles with breadcrumb trail

• A-Z

• Site map displaying the layout of the site and ability to link to each page

• Search facility

• Clear links to related content

Media

• To ensure images can be conveyed to visitors using assistive technologies such as screen readers or text based browsers we have provided a text equivalent (alt tag) to every non-text element such as images, animations and graphical representations

• Ensured pages transform seamlessly

• Avoided changing the current window without informing the user

Downloads 

There are numerous documents available on our site to download. Where possible we have made these available in both the original format, for example Word, and also in PDF format. An icon to the left of the document name will indicate the document's format. A PDF document will be indicated by this icon:

PDF, created by Adobe Systems stands for Portable Document Format which allows for easy exchange of documents over the Internet. To read or download any PDF document you will need Adobe Reader. Many computers already have this but if your computer does not it can be downloaded for free by following the link to Adobe Reader to the right of this page.

The file size and download time of each document will also be displayed.

Forms

• Provided a logical tab order

Tables

• Ensured tables include summary data and headings

• Ensured they are concise and comprehensible and appear clearly within the page

Access keys

All of the main articles within the website have been allocated a specific access key.

This enables visitors who have difficulties using a mouse or who just prefer to use keyboard shortcuts to access content to use their keyboard.

Hold down the 'Alt' key on the keyboard and press the relevant access key (please see the table below which identifies each access key). If you are using Internet Explorer 5 or 6 you will need to press the 'Enter' key at the same time.

Text resizer

Visitors with visual impairment can use the 'Text Resizer' buttons located on the Accessibility bar on the Home page to automatically increase the text size of the site to their chosen font size. Visitors can choose from three increasing font sizes, the default being the smallest font size.

Speech enabled content

For visitors with mild impaired vision, dyslexia or reading difficulties we have incorporated Dixerit Plus which is free and easy to use. Visitors can listen to our website by clicking the 'Listen To This Website' link on the Accessibility bar.

There are 4 ways to listen to a page:

• If you only want to hear a list of links on the page click the "Read Links" icon

• If you only want to listen to a certain section you can hover the cursor over the text and click on the speech bubble

• Select the text you want to listen to using the mouse and then click on the "Read Text" icon

• The service will automatically read the item that has the focus. Usually the focus is changed by pressing the TAB key

Click on the Help icon for further information and an explanation of the toolbar icons.

Translation tool

Google Translation service is available so visitors can view the website in a different language. Clicking the 'Translate This Page' link on the Accessibility bar will open the Translations page where an alternative language can be selected. The website will then automatically be reload in the chosen language.

Further help

The BBC's My Web My Way website explains how to make your Windows software, keyboard, mouse and web browser more suitable to your own needs such as changing screen colours and making your mouse pointer easier to use. Click the link to the BBC website to the right of this page.

If you have any difficulties accessing any of the information on our website or if you have any questions or comments about the accessibility of our website please contact us via the contact details to the right of this page.