Accessibility
Our Aim
This site aims to make the information contained within its pages accessible to all users, by the use of clear navigation, both graphical and textual. All pages are W3C WCAG-A compliant and fall short of only one or two minor compliances at AA and AAA level.
Web Standards
This
site uses Cascading Style Sheets (SSS) for text and layout.
It complies with the
latest web standards (as of October 2009), as laid down by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Links and new windows
In the main, to meet accessibility guidelines, links, including
those leading to external sites, will not result in opening a
new window (use your browser 'back' button to return to this
site). The exceptions are those linked to a pdf document*, which
are labelled as such -
.
There may be one or two other links for which a new window
opens. These will be clearly marked with a
symbol.
You can, of course, choose to open links in a new tab or window. In Internet Explorer it is done by right clicking the link, which brings up a menu with the 'open' options at the top.
For those using a screen reader or browsing without styles, there is a "skip to main content" link on each page.
*If you do not already have the Adobe pdf reader installed on your computer you can obtain it free.
Text resizing/formatting
The
site design supports text resizing for the main content.
However, recent versions of Internet Explorer and most other
modern browsers provide a better option to this by giving the
opportunity to zoom in or out. This can be achieved via the link
at the bottom of the page in IE - see left - or, for most
browsers, via the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + and Ctrl -
Forms
Forms on this site support tabbing.
Different browsers
The site is best viewed in recent versions of the main browsers.
Content should be fully accessible to older browsers but presentation is optimised for newer browsers that support web standards.
If this site is not displaying properly we would suggest that you update to the latest version of your browser. There is no cost associated with this, unless you are using specialised access software.
Although we are not in a position to recommend it generally, if you have disability issues such as partial vision, you may find the Opera browser useful, in that you can easily adapt the view to meet your own needs.
Feedback
If you have particular difficulty with anything on this site please feel free to report it via our Feedback page. Positive feedback is also welcomed!
