We want to make sure our website is accessible to everyone. We’re working towards complying with Level AA of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and following the advice given by the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
Here are just some of the ways we’ve designed this site to make it more accessible:
Images
We use ‘alt’ tags. These describe images if you cannot see them.
Stylesheets
We use stylesheets rather than manual text styling so you can change how the text looks on our site to suit you (you can find instructions on how to do this further down this page).
Headers
We use header elements to structure the pages and make information clearer.
Colour
Colour is not used as the sole means of conveying information. For example, a colour block in a graph would be accompanied by a text explanation.
Text
All the text on this site can be resized (with the exception of a handful of images displaying text) to make it easier for you to read. (Find out how to do this by reading the instructions further down this page).
Navigation
There are several ways to navigate our site – a search engine, navigation bar and sitemap.
To find out more about this website and accessibility or to report a problem you have found when trying to access this site, contact us and we’ll fix any problems as soon as we can.
Changing font size
Use the settings on your browser to change the font size.
Internet Explorer users
Select View > Text Size.
Firefox users
Select View > Text Size > Increase Font/Decrease Font, or use the keyboard shortcut by pressing Ctrl and + to increase the text size, or - to decrease the text size. Ctrl and 0 returns you to the default size.
Safari users
Select View and click on the options Make Text Bigger or Make Text Smaller. You can also use the following shortcut keys: Apple and + or Apple and -.
Opera users
Select View > Preferences > Fonts and change Minimum Font Size (pixels).
Stylesheets
You can import your own stylesheet into our website to change how its text appears by following the instructions below.
Internet Explorer users
Select Tools > Internet Options > Accessibility. Next click on any or all of the three checkboxes to ignore colours, font styles or font sizes. In the same window you can change the stylesheet by clicking the checkbox that says ‘Format document using my stylesheet’ then browse to your preferred stylesheet and click OK.
Firefox and Mozilla users
Firefox and Mozilla browsers do not have the option for you to use your own stylesheets. Click on the Tools > Options > Content tab to select your own colour and font preferences.
Safari users
Select Safari menu > Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. Choose ‘Other’ in the Stylesheet drop-down and browse to your stylesheet. Restart your browser and your styles will be applied to all pages you visit after that.
Opera users
Select File > Preferences. Click on the ‘Page Style’ heading on the left-hand menu. Click the drop-down box next to Default Mode, and choose User Mode from the list. Select Choose under the ‘My Stylesheet’ heading. Browse to the stylesheet you wish to open, double click on it to return to the Preferences window. Click OK to return to Opera.