Our website is designed to conform to World Wide Web Consortium accessibility standards, but there are some things you can do to make our site even easier to use:
- Site accessibility features
- Customising your computer
- Using keyboard shortcuts
- Useful links
Site accessibility features
The accessibility button on the left hand side allows you to:
- Increase or decrease text size
- Change the site from colour to Grayscale
- Apply High or Negative contrast
- Apply a light background to all parts of the site
- Underline links (that are not already underlined)
- Change the font to a Readable font
Customising your computer
AbilityNet and the BBC have developed some tutorials which tell you how to customise your computer to give you a better experience when using the web. For example, you can find out how to:
- change how information is shown on your screen, to get more on, or to see content more clearly
- change colours and fonts, a good idea if you have a visual impairment and need more contrast
- adapt the mouse, for example, to slow it down, make the pointer bigger, or if you are left-handed
- change a variety of keyboard settings, including the rate at which the cursor blinks.
Using keyboard shortcuts
You can use keys on the keyboard to move around our website more quickly. These are called shortcuts, and the keys you use depend on your browser.
Useful links
You can download free software from the web, and find out about accessibility features for a variety of systems:
www.abilitynet.org.uk – for information about customising your computer
My Web My Way – for information and tutorials, developed by the BBC and AbilityNet, on customising your computer
www.microsoft.com/enable/training/default.aspx – Microsoft accessibility wizard and how to use it
www.google.com/accessibility/all-products-features.html – Google accessibility tools
www.apple.com/accessibility – Apple Macintosh accessibility features
www.accessfirefox.org – accessibility features in Firefox and download extensions
