Standards compliance

As far as possible, we have tried to ensure that:

• All pages comply with priority 1 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
• All pages validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
• The style sheets we use conform to W3C recommendations
Throughout this website you will find that:
• We have provided a text equivalent for every non-text element, such as photos and graphics.
• Information conveyed with colour is also available without colour for people who cannot differentiate between certain colours or who use devices that have non-colour or non-visual displays.
• All pages can be read when style sheets are turned off or are not supported.
• We will ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.
• We have avoided content that causes the screen to flicker.
• We have used the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content.
• We have only used html tables to tabulate data and they have not been used to structure or lay out pages.
• We have ensured that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported.

Accessibility references

• W3 accessibility guidelines, which explain the reasons behind each guideline.
• W3 accessibility techniques, which explain how to implement each guideline.
• W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.
• U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.

Accessibility software

• JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
• Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
• Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
• Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
• Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user stylesheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.

Accessibility services

• Bobby, a free service to analyse web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
• HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
• Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
• Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.

Related resources

• WebAIM, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving accessibility to online learning materials.
• Designing More Usable Web Sites, a large list of additional resources.
• Dive into Accessibility, an excellent practical guide to Web accessibility.