Accessibility

Browsers

This site has been built to work in all modern browsers. If you are using an older version than Internet Explorer 9 you may experience problems and should look at upgrading your browser to a newer version.

The website includes the following features to make the site accessible to all our visitors.

Changing colours, font, text size and other settings
All modern browsers allow you to change colours and font sizes. We’ve tried to create a site which doesn’t get in the way when you change these settings.

Plain English

We try to write in plain English and avoid jargon . If you don’t understand something, please let us know using the ‘Rate this page’ link on every page.

Heading structures

The site uses simple heading structures which should make it easier to find what you need, especially for people who use screen readers.

Web standards

We try our best to comply with code standards e.g. HTML and CCS, and W3C WAI accessibility guidelines.

Alt Tags

All pictures and images within the site will be tagged with alternative text to describe the content of a picture. This is useful for text-based browsers or for users with visual impairments as it enables the picture to be described in words.

Navigating around the website
Skip to content

We have a ‘skip to content’ link at the bottom of the hero section of the pages that contain hero sections which will skip navigation links and other elements to arrive at the main content. This appears when you start to tab through the website pages.

Non html documents

We aim to provide content in html format where possible. Where we have to use PDF documents the document will be:

  • Tagged
  • Bookmarked
  • Language set to English UK

Videos

We will sometimes add videos to the website to support the website text. Where possible, when we add videos we will provide captions so that you can read what people are saying as it happens.

We have also provided more accessible buttons that allow you to control the video by using tab alone.

Accessibility disclaimer

Despite our best efforts there are some web pages which are provided by other organisations which do not yet have all the functionality mentioned above. We are working with our partners to make these websites as accessible as possible.

We also embed Google Maps and YouTube videos on some of our pages. We have made efforts to make these as accessible as possible but some screen reader or keyboard only users may have difficulties accessing them. We will try to provide text alternatives for these websites or at the very least a link back to the provider’s website.