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For this website to be accessible, it must be as easy to use and understand for as many visitors as possible. We strive to ensure accessibility by complying with or exceeding the recommendations of appropriate industry standards and applicable legislation, and we are committed to continually reviewing and improving our levels of compliance.

Font Control

This website offers the option for it to be viewed in different text sizes

You can alter the size of the screen fonts using the tools built in to most modern web browsers:

  • Internet Explorer (all Windows versions): Go to the 'View' menu, 'Text Size', and select your desired setting. The default is medium. Alternatively, if you have a mouse with a wheel you can hold the CTRL key on your keyboard whilst scrolling up or down with the wheel to alter the text size.
  • Mozilla (i.e. Firefox / Camino, Mac and PC): Go to the 'View' menu and either click the 'Increase Text Size' or 'Decrease Text Size' menu items, or alternatively you can use the CTRL key with the mouse wheel or plus and minus keys to increase or decrease the size.
  • Internet Explorer 5.1 (Mac): Go to the View menu and use the 'Text Zoom' feature.
  • Apple Safari: Go the 'View' menu and use the 'Make Text Bigger' and 'Make Text Smaller' menu items. Alternatively you can use the option key with + or - to increase or decrease the text size.
  • Netscape 7 + (Mac and PC): Go to the 'View' menu and use the 'Text Zoom' feature to change text size. Alternatively you can use the CTRL key with the plus or minus to increase or decrease the size.

Screen Size

This website will look best at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels or greater, at a colour depth of 16bit or better. Most laptops, and desktops with a screen size of 17" or larger, will run at this sort of resolution and colour depth. You can find instructions for changing the screen settings of the most popular operating systems below:

Screen Reader Compatibility

The website supports screen reader programs. We recommend Browsealoud, an application for Mac and PC which can be used with most modern browsers. Once installed, simply click on the logo to switch on the reader and follow the set up instructions. If you have any problems, there is a page which sets out full instructions on installing and uninstalling Browsealoud. When installed, position your cursor at the start of a paragraph and it will start to read automatically. To stop the reader at any point, simply press the Ctrl key.

Print Version

This website is designed to print well by default. When you print the website it will automatically be reformatted for a clearer appearance on paper.

Standards

This site fully complies with the W3C XHTML 1.0 Standard and will validate.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) on this site are essentially written according to W3C standards, but we have included additional formatting information which will cause the CSS not to validate. Unfortunately, different web browsers interpret the CSS standard in different ways - often incorrectly - meaning that it is difficult to create stylesheets which both validate against the appropriate standards, but which also allow users to see the website as intended across a wide variety of web browsers and platforms (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc). We have tried hard to ensure that our users have the best possible experience when browsing this website, irrespective of the sort of browser or computer they prefer to use, but this has meant that we have had to accommodate various browser inconsistencies in our CSS, at the expense of validation.

Plugins and Javascript

No additional plugins are required to use this website. However you will need to make sure Javascript is enabled in your browser:

Internet Explorer

  1. Select 'Tools' from the top menu
  2. Choose 'Internet Options'
  3. Click on the 'Security' tab
  4. Click on 'Custom Level'
  5. Scroll down until you see section labled 'Scripting'
  6. Under 'Active Scripting', select 'Enable' and click OK

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Select 'Tools' from the top menu
  2. Choose 'Options'
  3. Choose 'Content' from the top navigation (or 'Web Features' in Firefox 1.0)
  4. Select the checkbox next to 'Enable JavaScript' and click OK

Apple Safari

  1. Select 'Safari' from the top menu
  2. Choose 'Preferences'
  3. Choose 'Security'
  4. Select the checkbox next to 'Enable JavaScript'

Browsers

In order to provide good accessibility some compromises have unfortunately had to be made in terms of full support for certain older browsers which do not support web standards, or support them unreliably or unpredictably. We strongly recommend that you use only the following browsers:

Windows

  • Internet Explorer 7 (or 6) - available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp. Most people have this on their Windows-based PCs already. If you don't have Internet Explorer, or if you have a version earlier than version 6, you should consider obtaining one of the Mozilla browsers (see below) instead, because they are small and quick to download.
  • Mozilla Firefox - available at http://www.mozilla.org/
  • Netscape 8 (in Internet Explorer or Firefox rendering mode)
  • Opera 8 or above

Apple Mac

Linux

The following browsers are not recommended on any platform - they will show the website but may not display the pages optimally:

  • Internet Explorer < 6 (Not supported on the Mac)
  • Opera < v8 (Mac or PC)
  • Netscape < v8 (Mac or PC)
  • Konqueror (Linux, any version)

We appreciate that it might not seem easy or desirable to have constantly to upgrade your browser! If you do have an older browser, or one not on the list above, and you are unable or unwilling to change it, rest assured you will still be able to use the site, but you will not have the best viewing experience. Additionally most accessibility enhancements will not be available to you. Netscape 4 users may only view the site in text-only mode. We therefore again strongly recommend you upgrade your browser. If you'd like to read more about why this is a good idea more generally, visit the Web Standards Project.

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