Accessibility Features

This website has been designed to comply with UK Government, World Wide Web Consortium and RNIB guidelines on website accessibility and incorporates a number of features to ease the burden on those people who may suffer from many forms of disability. This page sets out the features used in this website.

About Text

People who suffer from visual disability may find it difficult to read text on web pages due to the size of the text or the colour of the text on its background. In a bid to overcome this, all the relevant text on this website can be resized using your browser controls. Please follow these instructions to resize the text: -

Internet Explorer Users

In the browser menu, click on View
From the drop down menu select Text Size
From the roll out menu click on the option you require to make text Larger or Smaller

Netscape Navigator and Mozilla Users

In the browser menu, click on View
From the drop down menu select Text Zoom
From the roll out menu click on Larger or Smaller to increase or decrease the text size or;
Select the size of text by it's percentage value to the original or;
Press and Hold down the [Ctrl] key and then press the [+] or [-] key

Changing Colours

Visually impaired viewers or people with certain other disabilities, may find the information contained within the website more readable if it is shown in a certain colour scheme. We have incorporated a style changer so you can change the colour scheme of the main text areas of the website to aid in this area. This style changer can be found by following the link in the top right hand side of the web page.

Access Keys

Access keys enable users to navigate to the main sections of the website without having to use a mouse or other pointing object. To save having to refer to a table of access keys, we have designed the site so that the access key for each link is underlined in the menu. For instance, the access key for the home page is h and is displayed like this in the links menu Home.

How to use access keys varies between operating systems and web browsers. The following information will be useful if you are unsure of the method to use:

Windows Operating System

Press and hold down the [Alt] key then press the access key you require

Mac Operating System

Press and hold down the [Ctrl] key then press the access key you require

Internet Explorer Users

In addition to the above, you may also need to press the [Enter] key after this to activate the link

Tab Indexing

It is possible to navigate one's way through a website using the tabulation [Tab] key on your keyboard. By using a tab indexing system, it is possible to force the web browser to go to certain elements on a web page in a logical sequence. This website has incorporated such a system. Generally, this will force the browser to go through the navigation links on the website in their logical sequence. This starts with the accessibility navigation at the top right hand side of the web page, then goes through the main navigation links, before any additional links are navigated to. There is one page where this does NOT happen. This is the contact page which includes a form to allow people to send e-mails directly from the website. On this page the Tab Index is set up to navigate through the form before moving on to the navigation links.

Using Screen Readers

Many people access the internet by using screen reader software that reads the content of the page to them. To ease the use of this website, we have optimised it for such use by making sure that, where tables are used for layout purposes, the content of each table cell is logical and sequential. In addition to this we have provided an invisible link at the top of the page to enable these people to skip past the header information and navigation tables so they can directly access the main content of the web page. If you use a screen reader and still have difficulty in understanding the site, we suggest you use the "No Style" version of this website that can be accessed from the Change Style link at the top right corner of the web page.