Web standards and Web Accessibility Initiative

We’re committed to providing the full range of services and tools our website can offer while delivering consistent user experience for people with a wide range of disabilities, including low vision. To support accessibility, we have used recognized standards and guidance.

Standards and guidance used

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), have guided our content and design decisions.

We also used Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act as a practical design reference. In 1998 Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible; while Section 508 does not legally apply to non federal websites, we have used it as a benchmark in developing this site.

Technical approach

The site is built, as far as possible, with standards compliant XHTML and CSS so it displays correctly in current browsers and is more likely to remain compatible with future browsers.

We have worked on meeting the WAI checkpoints, prioritizing full compliance with Priority 1 and implementing many Priority 2 and 3 checkpoints.

For more information, visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Accessibility features

We have introduced the following features to ensure the best use of our site by all of our users:

Changing text size

We realise some users may want to alter the size of the text on this site and as such we have avoided the use of 'fixed sized' fonts. To change the text size go to the 'View' menu at the top of your browser. Depending on your browser there will be an option in this menu called 'Text Size' or 'Text Zoom'. Use the options in here to increase/decrease text size.

Changing page magnification

As an alternative to changing only the font size on a site, some modern browsers now permit the user to increase/decrease the level of magnification of the site instead of the text only. This option will often have replaced the previously mentioned 'Text Size' or 'Text Zoom' in older browsers. For information on these options please visit the vendor's website as detailed in our other accessibility options section below.

Navigation

For screen reader users, we have incorporated hidden menu links at the beginning of each page. This enables users to go directly to the key content areas of each page without the need to listen to other page features first.

Headings and navigation menus

HTML heading tags are used to convey document structure. H1 tags are used for main titles, H2 tags for subtitles etc. Navigation menus are marked up as HTML lists. This ensures that the number of links in the list is read out at the start and it can be skipped easily.

Images

We aim to include descriptive alt tag attributes on every image used on this website. Where an image has no use other than being decorative the alt tag is set to null to allow easy reading of the site by all users.

Forms and fields

All forms fields follow a logical tab sequence to ensure easy navigation.

Most form fields also have 'label' and 'id' attributes to explicitly associate the form field with its label to allow for easy entry of data.

Javascript

The use of Javascript has been kept to an absolute minimum. Where it is used then all pages and process are still accessible should Javascript be turned off.

Links

All links have been written to make sense when taken out of context. Where appropriate, we have also added link title attributes to describe the link in greater detail.

Other accessibility options

Further accessibility options - such as the disabling of stylesheets, colours and images - are available within the preferences and settings of your browser and operating system. For information on these please visit the vendor's website. The following links will open in a new window.

 Browsers

 Operating systems

Further reading

The following websites provide more information relating to accessibility. The following links will open in a new window.