We consider the observation of accessibility requirements to be fundamental to effective design work. As the agency chosen to develop the definitive accessible website for the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB), we recognise how important it is to design websites that are accessible to all user groups.
“A key principle of web accessibility is designing websites and software that are flexible to meet different user needs, preferences, and situations.”
– The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
Understanding the partnership between site producers like us and the creators of operating system, browser and assistive technologies is fundamental to achieving accessibility in effective web design. We are leading the way in producing accessible websites in conjunction with the new generation of Microsoft technology.
We strive to obey the spirit of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 and the requirements of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC). We also observe the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 78 'Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Web Design', which was launched in March 2006 by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and applies W3C WAI guidelines. The PAS 78 guide, which advises website owners on how to commission accessible websites, is available free from the DRC (www.drc-gb.org).
Accessibility features on this website
The following features improve navigation for users of screen readers, keyboard navigation and text-only browsers.
Navigation shortcuts
The short menu at the start of each page allows you to jump directly to the most important parts of the page, including main content and navigation. Sighted people who use the keyboard to navigate will see these links appear on screen when using the Tab key to navigate through the page. Each shortcut is assigned an access key.
Access keys
Access keys are keyboard shortcuts that replace the need to use the mouse for navigation in the majority of browsers. In Internet Explorer on Windows, you can press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, you can press Control + an access key. Then press Enter to activate the link.
The following access keys are available throughout the website:
1 Jump to Home page
s (Skip navigation) Jump to main content
n Jump to Navigation menu
9 Jump to Contact page
0 Jump to Accessibility Statement (this page)
a Jump to About area
v Jump to Services area
c Jump to Clients area
p Jump to Partners area
m Jump to Comment area
j Jump to Careers area
We have developed this set of access keys in order to support the adoption of a useful standard; they conform to follow UK government website guidelines where applicable. Wherever possible they also avoid conflicting with commonly used screen reader keyboard shortcuts.
Structured, semantic markup
Headings/heading tags
HTML heading tags are used to convey document structure. H1 tags are used for main titles, H2 tags for subtitles, and so on. For example, JAWS users can skip to the next section on this page by pressing ALT+INSERT+2.
Navigation menus
Navigation menus are marked up as HTML lists. This ensures that the number of links in the list is read out at the start and it can be skipped easily.
Images
All content images used in this site include descriptive alt attributes. Purely decorative graphics include empty alt attributes. Images used for headings are applied using style sheets — since the heading exists as text behind the graphic, alt attributes are unnecessary.
Colours
We have checked the font and background colour combinations used on this site against the different colour blindness conditions and ensured that all information is still clear. If you wish to override the colours on this site, you can import your own style sheet.
Font sizes
You may change the font size of this document to your preference through your browser.
Internet Explorer users: select View, then Text Size, and then your preferred size.
Netscape users: select View, then Text Zoom, and then your preferred percentage size.
If you wish to override the font settings on this site, you can import your own style sheet.
Style sheets
This site uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for visual layout. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets, the use of structured semantic markup ensures that the content of each page is still readable and clearly structured.
If you wish, you may import your own stylesheet into this website.
Internet Explorer users: select Tools, then Internet Options, and then Accessibility. Use the checkboxes to ignore colours, font styles or font sizes. You can change your style sheet by clicking the ‘format document using my style sheet’ checkbox, then browse to your style sheet and click OK.
Netscape users: select Edit, then Preferences and then Appearance. You will then be given the option to specify your own colours and fonts.
Tables
Tables are not used for layout.
Scripting
The site is fully accessible if scripting is unavailable.
Links
Linking text have been written to make sense out of context.
Where appropriate, links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, for example to advise you if the link will open in a new window.
Standards compliance
Our pages conform to a minimum of Level A compliance as specified in the WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and endorsed by the RNIB.
We also meet the majority of WAI-AA and AAA requirements.
We use Bobby to test for accessibility. However, the Bobby test is not as reliable as expert evaluation and is just one aspect of our testing procedure. Pages are also tested in JAWS for Windows screen readers.