Accessibility Statement
We continue to try to make our website accessible to the greatest number of people. We do this in part by following modern web standards. We try to ensure that the site’s entire content is available to you, regardless of what technology you use to browse it (be it a visual, screen-based desktop browser, a screen reader, or something else). Please contact us and let us know about any problems you have using our website. Any suggestions that might help facilitate your use of this website are greatly appreciated.
Text-resizing
You should be able to resize text using your browser. Users of Internet Explorer, Mozilla browsers (for example, Firefox) and others, can follow these instructions:
- Enter your browser's View menu (usually at the top of the screen).
- From this menu, enter the Text Size menu.
- Select your desired text size.
Many browsers, like the Opera browser, for instance, allow you to increase or decrease the text size using the CTRL key (or the Command key for Apple Mac) in conjunction with the + and - keys.
Keyboard navigation
The Tab Key
The Tab key can be used to move from link to link on each page. The tabbing order for the links on our pages is logical and usable, moving first down the main column and then down the side column of each page.
Headings
Users of screen readers and some other browsers can navigate around pages on our site by jumping from heading to heading. For most screen readers, press:
- H to cycle forwards through the headings on a page
- Shift & H to cycle backwards through the headings on a page
- Insert & F6 to give a list of all the headings on a page.
Many screen readers provide further possibilities for navigation via headings.
The Opera browser has extensive support for keyboard navigation, highly customisable to your own preferences. To navigate headings with Opera, press:
- S to cycle forwards through the headings on a page
- W to cycle backwards through the headings on a page.
Access Keys
Access Keys are keyboard or keypad keys that have been defined as shortcuts to links on a website. When pressed in combination with the ALT key (Windows & Linux users) or the CTRL key (Mac users), a key defined as an Access Key allows you to either jump to its associated link on the page (say, a link to the home page), or to load that link directly.
We decided not to define any Access Keys on our site. In theory, Access Keys are a great idea. But unfortunately, there are problems with them in practice: for example, there can be conflict when a website defines an Access Key that has already been defined for another purpose by your browser or Operating System.
Other key-based navigational aids
| Link | Link Destination on page |
|---|---|
| skip-to-main | Main content area |
| skip-to-sub | Sidebar area |
Each of this website’s pages has Skip-to links, which allow you to use your keyboard to jump straight to the main content or sidebar areas of our pages, thereby bypassing the navigation links (for example).
Skip-to links, step-by-step
- Begin pressing the Tab key when a page has loaded.
- If you are not using a screen reader, try looking at the status bar (usually at the bottom of the screen) to see the links that your tabbing brings into focus (the Skip-to links come at the beginning of each page).
- When a Skip-to link is in focus, press Enter (or Return) to skip to that area of the page.
The Tab Key
You should be able to use the Tab key to move from link to link on each page. The tabbing order for the links on our pages is logical and usable, moving first down the main column and then down the side column of each page.
Links
- No links on our website depend for their usability on javascript — our website is accessible to users without a javascript-enabled browser.
- Wherever possible, we try to have the link-text make sense when read out of context. Individual links on a page have their own individual text. This makes links distinct from each other, avoiding the repetition of phrases such as “click here” or “read more”. Among others, this benefits users of screen readers who choose to scan the links on a page.
- Many links (including all links to external websites) have title descriptions that provide more information about the link destination; they can be accessed by hovering the cursor over and focusing on links, and can be read by screen readers.
- Links to anything other than ordinary web pages — such as to PDFs or Microsoft Word Docs — are made clear as such; and, where possible, a link to any technology required to successfully use a link is provided (for example, in the case of PDFs, a link to the Adobe Acrobat Reader).
- We avoid the use of links that ‘pop-up’ and open a new browser window when selected, except to occasionally provide larger images for those who would like to view them. These links are described explicitly as ‘pop-up’ links in their link-text, where they occur.
Images & visual content
We include a brief alternate text description of each relevant image on our web pages.
Any feedback about our website’s legibility would be gratefully received. We have run tests of our own (for example, using Vischeck’s colour-blindness simulator), and for the moment are satisfied that the colours we use are not a hinderance to its use. Of course, this provides no guarantee of accessibility. We encourage you to let us know of any problems you may have with our website.
We use CSS to give the website its visual style & layout. Browsers that do not support CSS (for example, very old browsers, or some alternative browsing devices such as PDAs) will still be able to render the site in an ordered and meaningful way, without any loss in functionality (due to the semantic way in which our site’s XHTML is coded).
Browser compatibility
This website has been tested on a number of browsers and operating systems, including:
-
Windows OS
Internet Explorer 6, 5.5 & 5
Mozilla Firefox 1x
Netscape 7x
Opera 7x -
Macintosh OS
Internet Explorer 5
Safari 1.2 -
Linux OS
Opera
Konqueror
Although this website should render reasonably well in these and (hopefully) many other browsers, we would recommend that you use a modern web browser for all your web-browsing requirements, such as Firefox or the Opera browser (both free, and without ad- or spyware). Firefox is an open-source web browser from Mozilla. Like the thoroughly-modern compact yet feature-filled Opera, it has advanced support for accessibility and web standards, improved security features (essential for Internet browsers today), and is available for download on a variety of OSs.
Disclaimer
This is not an exhaustive statement — that would be an awful lot to read. Please contact us if you would like any further information, or have any comments to make about our website’s accessibility.
