Accessibility
We want this website to be accessible to as many people as possible.
If you have any problems using any part of this site, we'll be very glad to help so .
Making text larger
The three "A" buttons can be used to enlarge the text size. This will only work if your web browser has Javascript turned on. If it isn't turned on, clicking on one of the buttons will have bought you to this page.
You can also enlarge the text size by changing your browser's settings. The BBC's My Web My Way pages give instructions for most browsers. Here are links to instructions for enlarging text in some of the most popular ones:
- Making text larger in Internet Explorer 7 (Windows)
- Making text larger in Internet Explorer 5/6 (Windows)
- Making text larger in Firefox 1.5/2.0 (Windows)
- Making text larger in Safari (Mac)
Other changes you can make
You can also change the styles and colours of web pages by changing your browser's settings. The BBC's My Web My Way pages show you how to do this, and make the most of your computer and browser's accessibility features.
Accessibility standards
This website has been designed in line with WCAG 1.0 guidelines, aiming to meet all level AA checkpoints, at a minimum.
A central aspect of the accessibility guidelines is compliance with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web standards. This site is written in valid XHTML and CSS. These W3C validation logos confirm that this page is valid.
To check the compliance of any other page on this website, go to that page and click on the "Valid XHTML" link at the very bottom of the page. This will check the page using the W3C validor.
This standards-compliance makes it easier for assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to interpret the content of the site.
The site is built using "strict" rather than "transitional" XHTML as this is more future proof, and leaves out many of the inaccessible elements of the transitional variety.
Other accessibility features
In line with, and in addition to WCAG 1.0 guidelines, the site is constructed with the following features:
- Page layout does not use tables except where tabular data is presented. Any such tables are structured logically with headings.
- Background images are rendered by the stylesheet, and are not part of the page content.
- Those images which are part of the content are given alternative descriptions.
- Pages have individual descriptive titles and full meta descriptions.
- The XHTML markup is semantic rather than presentational (e.g. quotations are tagged as such, rather than just made italic).
- Links contain descriptive text, so that they still make sense when taken out-of-context by screen-reader software.
- Abbreviations and acronyms are tagged as such, with inline definitions and pronunciation hints for screen-reader software.
- A glossary of abbreviations and acronyms is provided.
- Invisible "skip to content" and "go to navigation" links are provided to assist movement around the page when using screen-reader software.
- A "jump to top of page" link is provided for sighted users at the bottom of each page to reduce the amount of scrolling necessary.
- We have decided not to use use access-key or tab-index features in this site as we feel that these can create more problems than they solve. We have tried to reduce the need for them by ordering the page contents logically and semantically.
We are very keen to hear feedback on your experiences using this website. Please if you have any comments.