Accessibility Statement
This web site has been designed to be as accessible and usable as possible to as many people as possible, regardless of disability/impairment or browsing set-up, by designing it as far as possible in accordance with the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Should you have any difficulty accessing any area of the site, however, please contact us.
Here are some features of the site that are intended as positive aids to accessibility:
Customisable Site Appearance
The site has been designed so that text size and appearance can be changed to suit individual needs. So you can enlarge the text size and change text and background colour to suit your needs.
Depending on your browser, there are different ways of allowing you to change the text size of web pages:
- Some browsers allow you to change text size by holding down the CTRL key and pressing the + key (to enlarge text size) or - key (to reduce text size).
- Or, if you have a 'wheel' mouse, try holding down the CTRL key and using the mouse to 'scroll down' to enlarge the text.
- In Internet Explorer, version 5 and above, you can use the Text Size option of the View menu.
- In Netscape, versions 4.0-4.8, use the Increase or Decrease font size options of the View menu.
- In Netscape, version 6 and above, use the Text Size option of the View menu.
- In Opera, the "+" and "-" keys allow zooming in and out of the page.
The above tips work for Windows versions of browsers - if you're using a browser with an Apple MacIntosh or a machine running Unix or Linux, or are using a browser not listed above, check the browser's Help documentation - most browsers should allow you to change the text size of pages.
NB In Windows, you can also change the size of tool-tip text (i.e. the text that may appear when you move the mouse pointer over a link or graphic on a web page). This is a Windows setting, not a browser setting, so works over every program running.
More information:Trace Center article on how to enlarge tool-tip text. (NB In their instructions, after step 3, Windows XP users must go to the Advanced option of the Appearance screen.)
To change the text style and colour, and page background colour, the Opera browser lets you customise the appearance of some text. See Opera's web site for more details. Alternatively, you can create a user defined style sheet and use that whenever you browse.
More information: AWARE Center's guide to user defined style sheets.
Keyboard Access
The "Skip to Main Content" link at the top of each page allows quick access to the main content of each page, bypassing the navigation bar.
The Tab key can be used to navigate through all areas of the site. Links to some important pages/information have been given keyboard shortcuts. These are:
- Accessibility Page (this page) - ALT + 0
- Home Page- ALT + 1
- Contact Page - ALT + 9
- Skip to main content - ALT + S
More information: Jukka Korpela on Access Keys for web sites.
More Information
The site is written in XHTML Transitional 1.0, and each page should validate to this standard of HTML.
Acronyms and abbreviations can often confuse or irritate people; on this site, they have been provided with expansions; you can find these in the Glossary but also on each occurrence of the acronym or abbreviation you may be able to access the expansion, depending on your browser. For example, visually, you may see acronyms underlined with a dashed line; you may also see the expansion in a tool tip (boxed text) when the mouse pointer moves over the acronym. Screen reader users may be able to adjust the screen reader to speak the acronym expansion - for more details check your browsing technology's help documentation.
More information: The site was developed by the Digital Media Access Group - an accessibility research and consultancy group based at the University of Dundee.