We recognise the importance of providing a website that is accessible by all, including visitors with disabilities and those using alternative browsing devices. Here is an outline of the steps we have taken to make this site as accessible as possible...
Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. Windows users just need to press ALT plus the access key, whereas Macintosh users just press Control plus the access key. All pages on this site use the following access keys:
A 'Skip to main content' link has been added at the start of each page to enable those using text browsers or assistive technology to skip directly to the main content.
The site uses relative font sizes, which allows users of visual browsers to resize text themselves without breaking page layout. Usually, the controls for this are located in your browser's View menu.
The pages in this site use logical semantic markup helping to convey document structure - for example, H1 tags for main headings, H2 tags for sub-headings, and so on. Cascading style sheets (CSS) have been used for visual layout and styling, and the content of each page is still readable even if your browsing device does not support style sheets.
All content images used in this site utilise descriptive 'alt' attributes - screen readers and text-only browsers will read this text and gain a sense of what the images are communicating. For any images which are purely decorative, the alt tag is set to null to allow screen readers to skip over them.
All form inputs follow a logical sequence and can be navigated using the Tab key. All form fields contain 'label' and 'id' tags to explicitly associate the form field with its label, which creates a larger clickable area, allowing easier entry of data. The labels also allow screen readers to announce what a particular form input element refers to.
We have gone to great lengths to ensure our website is fast loading, well coded and accessible. All pages in this site conform to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and achieve double or triple A compliance. The guidelines themselves are open to a certain degree of interpretation and cannot be tested automatically, however the site's code consists of valid, standards compliant XHTML and CSS which can be tested.