Accessibility Statement

We are committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to everyone and we are continually striving to improve the experience for all of our visitors.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact us.

Customising your viewing preferences.

Standards Compliance

  1. All pages follow the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
  2. All pages validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict.
  3. All pages use structured semantic markup. H1 tags are used for main titles, H2 tags for subtitles etc. For example, on this page, JAWS users can skip to the next section within the accessibility statement by pressing ALT+INSERT+3. Opera users can skip sections by using "S" and "W" to cycle forwards and backwards respectively through headings.

Structural Markup

Web pages on this site include 4 different areas:

  1. A header bar
  2. A side bar that includes the main navigation
  3. A main content area,
  4. A footer.

When CSS (Cascading Styles Sheet) are not applied to a document (or when using a screen reader), the 4 areas are read in the above order.

Access Keys

Unfortunately, access keys often clash with keys set aside for use with other software. For this reason, we have decided not to set any access keys.

Images

  1. Unless they are purely decorative items, all images used on this web site have suitable text alternatives.
  2. Content should be usable/accessible with images 'off' (disabled).

Links

  1. Links do not have title attributes unless they are needed to describe the link in greater detail.
  2. Links are written to make sense when read out of context.
  3. The first link in every document is a "Skip to main content". This can be used to jump directly to what is considered the main section of the page (the content).
  4. Web page addresses are permanent whenever possible.

Forms

  1. All form controls will be associated with appropriate and explicit labels.
  2. We provide an email address as an alternative form of access for online forms.
  3. Form validation routine does not rely on client-side scripting.

Abbreviations

  1. Abbreviations and acronyms are expanded using standard markup techniques at their first occurance on each page

Scripts

  1. We do not use client-side scripts on this site.
  2. The content of this web site is usable without JavaScript support.

Pop up Windows

  1. No new windows are spawned without warning the user, first, as part of the link text

Visual design

  1. This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.
  2. Relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers, are used throughout the site.
  3. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets, the content of each page should still be readable.
  4. Any information conveyed through the use of color is also available without color (i.e. text based).

Further Information

How to modify this site to fit your needs

The following links explain the many ways you can make the web more accessible to you.

Accessibility References

  1. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, which explains the reasons behind this policy.
  2. Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, which explains how to implement each guideline.
  3. Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 - a guide to accessible web development.

Accessibility Software

  1. JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
  2. Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
  3. Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
  4. Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
  5. 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

  1. Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
  2. HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
  3. Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
  4. Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.

Related Resources

  1. WebAIM, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving accessibility to online learning materials.
  2. Designing More Usable Web Sites, a large list of additional resources.