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    Accessibility

    Every effort has been made to ensure maximum accessibility by applying standards-compliant design to the production of this website. Despite our best efforts, you may experience some problems when trying to access this website using assistive devices.

    Accessible design

    This site has been tested using the automatic validation services provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and employs many features to make information more accessible:

    • All images have text alternates (ALT attributes)
    • Pages are organised to be fully functional, even with javascript turned off
    • All text uses relative font sizes so text can be enlarged or reduced using the text size options available in visual browsers (see instructions below)
    • The site can be navigated without the use of a mouse (see instructions below)
    • All pages use flexible page formats so pages can be automatically resized for different window sizes and screen resolutions
    • Page formatting is achieved with XHTML and CSS to ensure that the semantic structure of the information is preserved
    • All pages are designed with separate cascading style sheets, so they can be replaced by user-defined style sheets
    • This site follows World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, recommendations and accessibility guidelines

    Metadata

    Metadata has been added to all pages as well-crafted metadata can provide important orientation information to users. The metadata provided includes:

    • A meaningful page title
    • The document language
    • A !DOCTYPE statement in order to validate to a published formal grammar
    • A description of the site’s content
    • Keywords describing the site’s contents

     

    Browsers

    You will be able to best experience this site and take full advantage of its features by using a standards-compliant browser. The following browsers support numerous web standards including CSS, XHTML, and the DOM (a universal means of controlling the behavior of web pages):

    • Mozilla (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)
    • Mozilla Firefox (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)
    • Safari (Mac OS X)
    • Camino (Mac OS X)
    • Opera (Windows, Mac, Linux)
    • Netscape 7+ (Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris Sparc, QNX, Os/2, FreeBSD, BeOS)

    Please note that this page does not pretend to be an exhaustive list of browsers that support web standards, nor a test of browser compliance, nor a side-by-side comparison of various manufacturers’ browsers.


    Plug-ins

    This website makes use of Macromedia® Flash™ software. Please ensure that you have the latest Flash Player plug-in from Macromedia® (version 6 minimum required).

    Known performance issues with Flash

    If you have the Shockwave Flash Player running in the background, Flash movies playing in your browser will run significantly slower. To alleviate this problem, simply quit the player application.

    The performance of this website may also suffer if you have multiple browser windows with Flash content open at the same time. To enhance the performance of this website, please close other browser windows containing Flash content which you may have open at the same time.

    Local connection objects

    This site may use local connection objects to enable Macromedia Flash movies to send insrtuctions to each other. As a result, this site’s performance might suffer if you have multiple browser windows with Flash content open at the same time. This is due to the local connection object’s becoming ‘confused’ as to which other Flash movie it ought to send instructions to. To remedy this problem, please close other browser windows containing Flash content which you may have open at the same time.

    Macromedia and Flash are trademarks of Macromedia, Inc.


    Bandwidth considerations

    Efforts have been made to ensure that this website is as bandwidth-friendly as possible. However, your experience here will be greatly enhanced if you access this site with a fast connection to the Internet (DSL, ISDN, Cable, T-1 etc.) and a computer operating at 500Mhz or faster.


     

    Site navigation

    A consistent navigation structure has been provided on all pages of the site. The navigation bar may be used as an indication of which section of the site the user is currently viewing. The selected link is clearly highlighted in the top navigation bar.

    Links are displayed clearly and in context. The ‘title’ tag is used to provide additional information about links where necessary. This additional information may be viewed in some browsers when the user’s mouse hovers over the link. Some screenreaders may also take advantage of this information.


     

    Access Keys

    Access Keys have been implemented throughout the site. Access Keys allow users to directly activate a link using only their keyboard. In this way, users no longer need to tab through a document’s contents before being able to activate a link. A full list of the Access Keys used on this site is provided below.

    Using the site without a mouse

    The site can be used without a mouse. The following shortcut keys will take you to commonly used pages such as the home page and will also allow you to activate alternate stylesheets:

    AccessKey Function
    H Navigate to the Homepage
    U Jump Up to the top of any page
    D Jump Down to the bottom of any page
     

    The procedure for using shortcut, or ‘Access’ keys, varies depending on which web browser you view the site with. The following table shows the AccessKey combinations for a range of popular web browsers:

    OS Browser AccessKey Combination
    Windows Internet Explorer 4 and above ALT + AccessKey (to focus the link) + ENTER to activate
    Windows K-meleon ALT + AccessKey
    Windows Mozilla ALT + AccessKey
    Windows Netscape 6 and above ALT + AccessKey
    Windows Opera 7 SHIFT + ESC, followed by AccessKey
    Mac OS X I-Cab 2.8 CONTROL + AccessKey *
    * you may need to click on the page first
    Mac OS X Internet Explorer 5 and 5.1 CONTROL + AccessKey *
    * some systems require CONTROL + COMMAND + AccessKey
    Mac OS X Mozilla Not supported
    Mac OS X Netscape 6 and above CONTROL + AccessKey
    Mac OS X OmniWeb 4 Not supported
    Mac OS X Opera ACCESSKEY COMBINATION
    Mac OS X Safari CONTROL + AccessKey
    Mac OS 9 Internet Exploerer 4 and 4.5 Not supported
    Mac OS 9 Mozilla Not supported
    Mac OS 9 Netscape 4 Not supported
    Mac OS 9 Opera Not supported
     

     

    Use of text on this site

    Most navigation elements are plain text and we have provided text alternatives to graphics on the site.

    Those with poor sight may be able to increase the size of the text on screen. The procedure for doing so differs from one browser to the next. The table below outlines the procedure for some popular browsers. If your browser does not appear in the table the following guidelines may be of assistance: In general, looking under the “View” selection on the main menu, you should find an option called “Text Zoom” or “Text Magnification” or “Text Size” or “Font Size”. From that point it should be relatively simple to find and select an additional sub menu option that adjusts text size to your needs.

    OS Browser Instructions
    Windows Internet Explorer 3 and 4 View > Fonts
    Windows Internet Explorer 5+ View > Text Size
    Windows K-meleon View > Increase Font / Decrease Font
    Windows Mozilla View > Increase Text Size / Decrease Text Size
    Windows Netscape 6 View > Text Size
    Windows Netscape 7 View > Zoom
    Windows Opera 5 and 6 Use dropdown menu on ‘progress’ bar
    Windows Opera 7 View > Zoom
    Mac I-Cab View > Font Size
    Mac Internet Explorer 4.5 View > Text Size
    Mac Internet Explorer 5+ View > Text Zoom
    Mac Netscape 4 View > Increase/Decrease Font Size
    Mac Netscape 7 View > Text Zoom
    Mac Opera 5 and 6 Use dropdown menu on ‘progress’ bar
    Mac OmniWeb 4 Browser > Bigger Text / Smaller Text
    Mac Safari View > Text Size
     

     

    Visual design and encoding

    This site uses Cascading Style Sheets for visual layout. In this
    way, structure is separated from design. The use of Cascading
    Stylesheets allows users to apply their own style sheets. The site
    may however be viewed without stylesheets. No information is lost
    when stylesheets are disabled.

    Relative values were used for all measurements, including font
    size. This allows the site to adjust to the user’s screen
    size. It also allows the user to set his/her own preferred font
    size.

    The site was designed to take full advantage of version 6+
    browsers. However, it may also be viewed using version 4 browsers.
    It it is possible to view the site on both these browser groups
    without any loss of information, though there will be some visual
    differences due to varying browser support for Cascading Style
    Sheets.

    Color

    The site has been designed using colors that should be both
    visually appealing and yet provide enough contrast for users who
    suffer from color-blindness. However, the user may choose to view
    the high contrast version of the site by setting this option via the
    style sheet preference buttons located on the top of the
    site’s pages.

    Images

    This site’s interface makes carefully considered use of
    images and where images do appear, they include text alternates to
    enhance accessibility.

    Content

    This site makes use of XHTML tags that provide additional
    information about structural items. These are used to add summary
    descriptions to tables, explain hierarchy within tables, provide
    emphasis on words and phrases, provide an explanation of
    abbreviations and to add structure to forms. These tags are often
    hidden from visual browsers but provide valuable information to
    non-visual browsers.

    Lists

    Many lists have title attributes which describe the content of
    the list in greater detail. Elements are marked up as lists if they
    follow a logical, structured order.

    Links
    • Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article or name of a person).
    • Links are written to make sense out of context.

     

    References
    • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
    • Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
    • Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

     

    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.
    Help us make our site more accessible

    We strive to make this site accessible to all users. Feedback and suggestions as to how the site can be further improved are very welcome. Please .