We are passionate about the accessibility of our website. This website has been designed with a number of accessibility features. The key features include:

• Access options page
• Alternative text
• Readable and resizable fonts and layout
• Minimising the use of images
• Access keys
• Help us to help you
• User-testing

Access options page

You can use our Accessibility Options page to easily change this site to meet your needs. You can change the text size; change the website's colour scheme; use access keys to navigate the site.

Alternative text

Images on our website have alternative text attributes, often known as alt text. This means that when an image is used on a web page to convey information its content is also described in the alt text. This means that the image can be understood by text browsers and assistive technologies such as screen readers. If an image is used for simply decorative purposes, the text attribute for the image is left empty in line with accepted best practice.

Readable and resizable fonts and layout

You can change the text size in Microsoft Internet Explorer by selecting View > Text size followed by your preferred text size from 'Smallest' to 'Largest'. The default setting is 'Medium'.

You can change the text size in Mozilla Firefox by selecting View > Text size followed by 'Increase' or 'Decrease'. To return the text size to its default setting, select 'Normal'.

The website's fonts have been chosen for their legibility on computer screens. The website's layout has been designed to stretch to fill the width of the browser, so that you can resize the browser to suit your own viewing preferences.

Minimising the use of images

Live text is used rather than graphics wherever possible to reduce page download time and to increase your control over text size.

Access keys

Access keys are a useful navigation device enabling you to get around the website using your keyboard. They can be used to jump to different sections of content across the main website. View a list of Access Keys used on our website.

Help us to help you

We seek to meet the Priority A, AA, and selected AAA guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines . Our website is tested on a regular basis using a combination of automated tools to identify potential problem areas and manual testing to ensure we meet the spirit as well as the letter of the W3C's accessibility guidelines.

If you have any problems accessing the site contact us and we will correct it.

User-testing

We have conducted several phases of user-testing of the whole website and of new sections. We always involve disabled people with a range of impairments in this testing and we make any changes needed to make the site more accessible and easy-to-use.