Website accessibility
Your website could be in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act if it is seen to discriminate against those with disabilities or impairments.
Q & A
- What does website accessibility mean?
- Website accessibility means allowing people with visual, aural, mental or physical impairments to use a website.
- Does my website have to be accessible?
- Yes.
The Disability Discrimination Act states:
Website owners should take 'reasonable steps' to make their sites accessible by disabled users or provide a reasonable alternative method of providing the service.
- How will this affect the general useability of my website?
- Compared to the old tables method of constructing websites, a W3C standards compliant website will inherently be accessible.
- Are there any benefits from having an accessible website?
- 1. Increased potential audience, by not turning away around one in seven of the UK population.
2. Your website will be more easily indexed by search engines - therefore more visitors.
3. Your website will generally download/display faster than an inaccssible one. - Does adding accessibility/standards compliance to my new website cost more?
- No. Your new site will be built to W3C standards from first inception.
- Do we practice what we preach?
- Yes. All pages on this site comply with all of the Priority 1, 2 and 3 automatic and manual checkpoints of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. If you think otherwise please correct us.
- Why are there no access keys on this site?
- There has been much debate in the world of web design over the practicalities of access keys. We believe there is a significant likelyhood that any access keys specified on this (or any other site) may conflict with any default keyboard commands already in use by some browsers or assistive technologies, posibbly resulting in browser/system functionality or instability.
Accessibility options on this site
Here are some options to adjust how this site works for you.
- To change text size:
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer
, go to "View" in the browser tool bar menu, select "Text size" then select your preferred size - either larger or smaller. - If you are using Mozilla Firefox
, go to "View" in the browser tool bar menu, select "Text size" then select "Increase" or "Decrease". - If you are using Netscape Navigator
, go to "View" in the browser tool bar menu, select "Increase font" or "Decrease font".
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer
- To change text and background colours:
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer , go to "Tools" in the browser tool bar menu, select "Internet options". Now select "Colours". In the"Colours panel", uncheck "Use Windows colours" then select your preferred colours for background and text. Now select "Accessibility" and tick the box labelled "Ignore colours specified on Web pages".
- If you are using Mozilla Firefox , go to "Tools" in the browser tool bar menu, select "Options", select "Content" then select "Colours". You can now set your preferred colour of text and background. Also uncheck "Allow pages to choose their own colours, instead of my selections above".
- If you are using Netscape Navigator , go to "Edit" in the browser tool bar menu, select "Preferences", select "Appearance" then select "Colours". You can now set your preferred colour of text and background.
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Viewing PDFs
(Portable Document Format):
- Links to PDFs will open in a new browser window.
- Did you know Adobe Reader can speak a page to you? First save the PDF file to your computer. Open the document. Go to "View" in the tool bar menu. Select "Read out loud" then select either Read this page only or Read to end of document.
- Links to external websites will open in a new browser window.
- This site does not support the use of access keys. Read why.
