Accessibility

“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

We offer the following accessibility features on this website:

Resizable text

The text size can be altered by changing the ‘text size’ setting in your browser. For Internet Explorer, you can change your text size setting by selecting the ‘Page’ menu option on your browser toolbar, and then selecting ‘Text Size’

You can also enlarge or decrease the size of the page and text by using the zoom function on your browser. To zoom in use Ctrl+ and to zoom out use Ctrl – . To reset the page to its original size use Ctrl 0.

To find out more about setting the text size for your computer, visit My Computer My Way www.abilitynet.org.uk/myway/

‘Skip to’ links

At the top of every page is a ‘skip to main content’ link that will be spoken by screen-reading software and will appear when ‘tabbed to’ using a keyboard. ‘Skip to main content’ is the first link and, when selected, will make reading skip past the rest of the menu items and commence at the beginning of the main page content.

Access keys

Access keys are keyboard shortcuts on a website that allow users to navigate the site without using a mouse.

The following are the access keys used on this site:

Home – Alt + 1 enter
Skip to main content – Alt + 2 enter
Site map – Alt + 3 enter
Terms & Conditions – Alt + 8 enter
Accessibility – Alt + 0 enter

Note:
* In Firefox use Shift+Alt
* Enter is not needed in Netscape 6 or 7 or Mac IE5+
* In Mac IE, substitute ctrl for alt
* To scroll down a whole page, use the page up/down buttons on your computer keyboard
* Your browser may or may not support access keys.

Plain layout

Turning off the style sheet gives a plain layout view, which:

  • makes text black on a white background (or however your browser is set)
  • puts all the information in one column (called ‘linearised’)
  • leaves content images
  • removes background images

These pages are laid out using style sheets. You can change to your own style sheet to meet your needs and preferences.

Site map

There is a text-only site map, which may also help you to navigate around the website.

Printer-friendly pages

Reading from a printed page is very different from browsing a website. When you print pages from this site, you will see that the page design is adapted to the printed page. This should make the pages easier to read and will save paper and ink.

Downloading files

Some publications are available for you to download from our site for future viewing and printing. We give the sizes of the files so that you can decide whether you want to go ahead if you are using a slow connection to the Internet. Almost all of the documents are saved as either PDF or Word files and you will need appropriate software to open them.

PDF files
To view and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files, you need the free Adobe Reader software (formerly known as Adobe Acrobat Reader). If you don’t have Adobe Reader already, you can download it from www.adobe.com. Follow the link titled ‘Get Adobe Reader’.

To find out how read a PDF document with a screen reader or other assistive technologies, go to the Access.Adobe.com website.

Word files
You can view and print Microsoft Word files from Microsoft Word itself or several other word processing packages. Microsoft offer the free Microsoft Word Viewer as a download for Windows users who don’t have a suitable word processor. The viewer is available from the Office section of www.microsoft.com

My Web My Way

Includes information on changing the colours, text size and style of websites, and explains how these changes can be made to affect every site you visit, if you wish. My Web My Way was developed by AbilityNet and the BBC as a source of accessibility help for all computer users.
www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility

My Computer My Way
Offfers advice about the many ways you can adapt your keyboard and mouse, Windows, the internet and your favourite applications to suit your needs.
www.abilitynet.org.uk/myway

Feedback

We welcome feedback about the accessibility and usability of our website. If you have had any problems or have any suggestions, please get in touch.