Accessibility Policy

Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. On Windows, you can press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, you can press CTRL + an access key.

The access keys used on this site are designed to be as standardised as possible and are based on the recomendations of the UK Government.

• Access key s - Skip Navigation
• Access key 1 - Home page
• Access key 3 - Site map
• Access key 4 - Search
• Access key 0 - Accessibility statement

Standards compliance

• All pages on this site are WCAG AA approved, complying wih all priority 1 and 2 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Again, this is a judgement call; many guidelines are intentionally vague and can not be tested automatically. This site has been reviewed and it is believed that all these pages are in compliance.
• All pages on this site validate as HTML 5. This is not a judgement call; a program can determine with 100% accuracy whether a page is valid HTML. For example, check the home page for HTML validity.

Text

• This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified “text size” option in visual browsers. For those using Internet Explorer, go to View > Text Size > and select your desired size. For Firefox users, simply hold the CTRL button and press + or - to increase or decrease the size.
• Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article).
• Links are written to make sense out of context.

Visual design

• This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout, and semantic HTML for structure.
• If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.
• All images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.
• Complex images include LONGDESC attributes or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.