Accessibility
Introduction
On this page:
We are committed to ensuring everyone can access our website. This includes people with sight problems, hearing, mobility and cognitive impairments.
We are actively working to improve the accessibility and usability of our website. We are aiming to achieve overall compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines to Level AA standard. Conformance to these guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users. There are some pages on our website that do not yet conform to these guidelines.
Using the website
A high contrast option appears at the top right of the site on every page.
You can also use your browser settings to change the text size for all the websites that you visit. The technique for doing this is slightly different depending on the browser that you use:
-
Internet Explorer 7/8: Select the 'Page' menu, then one of the options under 'Zoom' or 'Text Size'. The default setting is 'Medium'
-
Internet Explorer 6: Select the 'View' menu, and select one of the options under 'Text Size'
-
Mozilla Firefox: Select the 'View' menu, then 'Text Size', then select Increase, Decrease or Normal
-
Opera: Select the 'View' menu, then one of the 'Zoom' percentage options
-
Netscape: Select the 'View' menu, then one of the 'Text Zoom' options
The site uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control all of the presentation and layout. You can choose your own background and text colours by applying your own stylesheets.
More detailed information about changing fonts and font sizes in your operating system and in various other browsers is available online at BBC My Web My Way.
Screen readers
This website also works with a variety of screen readers.
As the website uses cascading style sheets to control layout, screen reader users no longer have to listen to this information about the website's layout.
As a result, screen reader users can use the screen reader's navigation key to get around the site. If you are listening to the site, menus are grouped together in a more logical fashion. The navigation has been moved to appear after the content. Users can quickly use the jump to navigation link to get to that.
For tips on using screen readers see the RNIB website.
Audio help
The website includes the option to hear an audio version of the Re-CAPTCHA tool on the registration form (which allows us ensure data quality and avoid spam.)
Video and audio content
We have a number of audio and video clips on the website. In most cases, text transcripts have been provided.
Access keys
This website has a set of access keys or keyboard shortcuts to help navigate around the site without using a mouse.
[S] Skip navigation
[1] Home page
[3] Site map
[4] Search this site
[6] Help using this site
[7] Contact us
[8] Terms and conditions
[0] Accessibility Statement
Different computers and browsers use access keys in different ways.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4: Press 'Alt' and the access key number simultaneously.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later: Press 'Alt' and the access key number simultaneously, then press the 'Return' key.
Netscape 6: Press 'Alt' and the access key number simultaneously for PC, or press 'CTRL' and the access key number simultaneously for Apple Mac.
Mozilla Firefox 2: Hold down the 'Shift' key, then 'Alt' and access key number.
Opera 9: Hold 'Shift' and 'Esc' key and the list of access key will appear.
Content
The content has been written and formatted to make it accessible. For example:
-
headings highlight sections of text
-
links use meaningful text
-
forms can be navigated using the tab key.
Accessibility testing
The site has been tested to ensure that the standards referred to in this accessibility statement are adhered to and maintained. The site has also undergone user testing by our independent accessibility experts, Test Partners.
Before go-live, we tested the site using the following browsers:
-
Mac OSX
-
Safari 2, 3 and 4
-
Firefox 2 and 3
-
Opera 8 and 9
-
Win XP
-
IE 6
-
IE7
-
IE8
This website has been tested for compliance with the Level AA requirements of the W3C WCAG 2.0 through these measures:
-
Manual inspection of the source code
-
User interface testing via a standard web browser (Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7.0)
-
Assistive technologies such as JAWS screen reader
-
Validation of XHTML and CSS level 2, through tools such as the W3C Online HTML and CSS Validators, AIS Accessibility Toolbar and AIS Colour Contrast Analyser (based on WAI algorithm)