You are in

• Home
• Accessibility

Home:

Accessibility

We have designed this website to be easy to use and conform to current accessibility guidelines.

This website aims to conform to:

• W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines priority 1 and 2 guidelines
• XHTML 1.0
• CSS 2.0

If you have any comments regarding the site's accessibility please contact us.

Keyboard access keys

The website has been created to allow navigation without the need of a mouse, through use of the Tab key and other assigned access keys. The UK Government access keys standard has been applied where possible, while specific keys have been assigned values to assist navigation to main sections of the site. The use of access keys should not interfere with keyboard shortcuts within your browser.

Activating an access key is dependent on your browser; for example, in Internet Explorer Alt+1, then Enter, will take you to the home page. This function in Firefox would be Alt+Shift+1, then Enter.

• s = Skip navigation
• 0 = Accessibility page
• 1 = Home page
• 2 = News, features and events
• 3 = Site map
• 4 = Search function
• 5 = Privacy policy
• 6 = Help index
• 7 = Contact us
• 8 = Terms if use

Resizing text

You can make the text on our website larger or smaller by:

• Pressing 'Ctrl' on your keyboard and using your mouse scroller
• Pressing 'Ctrl' and '+' (to zoom in) or 'Ctrl' and '-' (to zoom out) on your keyboard
• Using the built-in controls in your web browser. See your browser's help pages for further instructions

Printing pages

Use your browser's Print function to automatically print pages without any navigation elements.

Portable Document Files (PDF)

PDFs are used across the site to complement content when appropriate. PDFs have been constructed to be accessible using screen reader technology, with page tagging and reflow options available on the majority of current PDF documents found on the site. If you find a PDF document that is not accessible, please contact the web team who will be happy to restructure the document on request.

Visual design

The site uses cascading stylesheets (CSS) for all visual presentation elements. If your browser does not support CSS or if you turn CSS off in your browser, the content should still be readable.

Image galleries

Our image galleries use JavaScript. If you do not have JavaScript or if you have JavaScript turned off you can still view our images and image captions. Users who use a keyboard to navigate the Web should ensure JavaScript is turned off.

Assistive technology

The site is frequently tested using assistive technology such as JAWS (currently version 11.0) to ensure content is accessible to individuals who use screen reader software. If you discover a page or document that could be improved to enable greater accessibility when using screen reader software, please contact the web team who will endeavour to meet your requirements.

Contact