We have designed our website to be as accessible and usable as possible to everybody, and to work with a range of assistive technologies.
Our aim is that it is available to everyone including those with sight, audio and motor impairment restrictions.
As far as possible we stick to the following guidelines:
- we use only standard web fonts so that all text is easy to read
- we include appropriate alt tags to convey information to those who cannot see images
- navigation through our website works in a consistent and intuitive way
- we do not rely solely on colour to provide information
- we avoid the use of images of text wherever possible, and provide equivalent text for links that consist of images
The BBC's My Web My Way website provides information on changing your computer or browser to make the web more accessible for you.
Access keys
Access keys provide keyboard shortcuts to go to common and useful pages of a website or to skip past the page navigation on a webpage.
We have tried to follow the UK Government access keys standard on our website.
For example, the access key 1 will take you to the homepage of any website that follows the standards.
The access keys used on our website are:
- S - Skip navigation
- 1 - Homepage
- 4 - Search
- 6 - Help
- 7 - Complaints procedure
- 8 - Privacy statement
- 9 - Contact us
- 0 - Access key details
Access keys typically require you to press and hold a key or keys along with the relevant access key. They work differently on different web browsers:
- Internet Explorer: Alt + access key + Enter
- Firefox: Alt + Shift + access key
- Safari: Ctrl + access key
- Opera: Shift + Esc + access key
Other browsers have their own key combinations.
JavaScript and other technologies
As far as possible we do not use technology that can impede accessibility to render content on our website.
In some cases however, we have decided that data is best presented by using other technologies, such as JavaScript. Our interactive Google maps, for instance, use JavaScript to present much more data than a static map could do.
Where we have used such technology, as far as possible we have provided the data in an accessible form elsewhere on the website.