Accessibility

This site is built using XHTML and cascading style sheets. This creates a fast loading website that is accessible to screen readers and is usable in most browsers, including older browsers and browsers available on non-Windows systems.

Images and design

All images have ALT tags. Where appropriate, ALT tags provide screen reader users and those with images turned off with a description of the content of the picture.

Keyboard Accessible Links and Menus

The Tab key is used to move forward through elements., and Shift+Tab to go back. You should be able to access the following by tabbing through the page:

  • Links
  • Menus
  • Buttons
  • Form fields

Visible Focus Styles

Focus styles have been included on the site for keyboard users as they need something visual to show them where they are on the page when tabbing through. If there’s no focus style, it’s hard for them to tell what they are interacting with.

Skip links

Skip links can save screen reader users or keyboard users from having to go through long lists of links repeatedly in order to get to the content.

Screen reader text

Screen reader users looking at links out of context e.g. on a Blog page with excerpts may encounter many “Read more” links. Without screen reader text, the link destinations won’t be obvious. Screen reader text is also valuable for icon fonts, which can’t have alt text.

ARIA Landmark Roles

ARIA landmark roles are used to help screen reader users navigate to particular parts of the page.

Roles used included on the site:

  • banner
  • main
  • complementary
  • contentinfo
  • search
  • navigation