Accessibility

On our website

We aim to make this website accessible to all users. This website follows certain standards and Government guidelines to ensure that as many people as possible can use the site as effectively and easily as possible.

We are working towards ensuring that this Website conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative's ‘Double-A' standard. You can find details about this standard using the link below.

www.w3.org – The website of the World Wide Web Consortium

Printing, emailing and viewing our website

You can print a page from the site by selecting “Print” from your browser.

The email page option at the top of every page, will call up the email dialogue box and allow you to email the page as it appears.

Screen settings – The web pages will look and function as intended, ideally at a display setting of 800×600 pixels, or 1024×768 pixels.

Follow the links on the right hand side of this page for detailed information about how this website has been designed to meet the needs of our users.

• Help with PDFs
• Text Size
• Access Technology
• Translations

Help with PDFs

You will need to download the free Adobe Reader from Adobe's website to view the PDF documents in this section.

What is a PDF ?

The downloadable documents available within this site are in Portable Document Format (often referred to as PDF ). A standard adopted by governments and organisations worldwide. PDF is a reliable format for electronic document exchange that preserves document integrity so files can be viewed and printed on a variety of platforms. We chose to make all downloadable documents in this file format for data security and integrity reasons.

How can I open and view a PDF document?

To view a PDF document, you need free software called Adobe Acrobat Reader, created by the company called Adobe.

If you see this symbol next to a link, this means the document needs to be opened using the Adobe Software. The Adobe Acrobat Reader can be download by clicking on the picture on the right or by clicking on the link below:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

How do I save a pdf document?

Once you have opened the document and you decide to save a copy to your hard drive, just click on the “Save a copy” represented by a picture of a floppy disk, and choose where you would like to save the file.

Access technology

You may be interested in the technology designed to improve access:

Screen enlargers

Screen enlargers or screen magnifiers work like a magnifying glass. They enlarge a portion of the screen as the user moves the focusincreasing legibility for some users. Some screen enlargers allow a user to zoom in and out on a particular area of the screen.

Screen readers

Screen readersare software programs that present graphics and text as speech. A screen reader is used to verbalize, or “speak,” everything on the screen including names and descriptions of control buttons, menus, text, and punctuation.

Speech recognition

Speech recognitionsystems, also called voice recognition programs, allow people to give commands and enter data using their voices rather than a mouse or keyboard.

Speech synthesizers

Speech synthesizers (often referred to as text-to-speech (TTS) systems) receive information going to the screen in the form of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, and then “speak” it out loud. Using speech synthesizers allows blind users to review their input as they type.

Refreshable Braille displays

Refreshable Braille displays provide tactile output of information represented on the computer screen. The user reads the Braille letters with his or her fingers, and then, after a line is read, refreshes the display to read the next line.

Braille embossers

Braille embossers transfer computer generated text into embossed Braille output. Braille translation programs convert text scanned in or generated.

Talking word processors

Talking word processors are software programs that use speech synthesizers to provide auditory feedback of what is typed.

Large-print word processors

Large-print word processors allow the user to view everything in large text without added screen enlargement.

To find out more about these technologies, visit the Website of the Royal National Institute of the Blind – www.rnib.org.uk