We aim to comply with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) current guidelines for accessibility. This is an ongoing process and we are continually working to make our web sites more accessible for people with disabilities.
Accessibility standards
The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops strategies, guidelines, and resources to help make the web accessible for people with disabilities. Included in this initiative are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which include a series of specifications (referred to as Priorities) that may be used to review a web site's content for accessibility.
More information on these specifications can be found below:
- World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
- Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Access keys
Access keys are predefined key combinations that are assigned to hyperlinks or other elements within a web page. In short, a hyperlink or form field may have a key press associated with it, removing the need to use a mouse to navigate a web site.
We have defined access keys as follows:
Access keys:
- S - Skip to content
- 1 - Homepage
- 2 - News
- 3 - Sitemap
- 4 - Search
- 5 -
- 6 -
- 7 - Privacy policy
- 8 - Terms of use
- 9 - Contact us
- 0 - Accessibility (incl. access key details)
Browsers and access key combinations
| Browser | Operating System | Access Key Combination |
|---|---|---|
| Firefox | PC | ALT + Access Key |
| Firefox, Mozilla | Linux | ALT + Access Key |
| Firefox, Mac | Mac | CTRL + Access Key |
| Internet Explorer 5+ | PC | ALT + Access Key, Enter |
| Internet Explorer 4 | PC | ALT + Access Key |
| Internet Explorer 5+ | Mac | CTRL + Access Key |
| Internet Explorer 4.5 | Mac | Not Supported |
| Opera | All | SHIFT + ESC, Access Key |
| Konqueror | Linux | CTRL + Access Key |
| Safari | Mac | CTRL + Access Key |
| Safari | PC | ALT + Access Key |
| Google Chrome | PC | ALT + Access Key |
| Netscape 6 and earlier | PC/Mac | Not Supported |
| Netscape 7 | PC | ALT + Access |
Images
All images have ALT or TITLE attributes associated with them. This means a short description will be provided when images are disabled, or are for other reasons unavailable.
Links
We try to ensure that links are described logically and can be understood out of context.
For those using screen readers, we have provided links that enable sections of each page to be skipped. Please note that these will not be visible to those using a standard browser, except under certain circumstances (such as disabling stylesheets).
Portable Document Files (PDFs)
Some of our content is provided in the form of PDF (portable document format) files. In order to view these documents you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader software. This free software can be installed automatically by going to the Adobe web site.
Adobe also provides some additional information on making information more accessible, including an online tool for converting PDFs to text.
- Adobe's Accessibility Resource Center
- Adobe's Online PDF Conversion Tool
