Site Accessibility

This website strives to achieve Triple-A accessibility of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0), employing best practice techniques where certain Priority 3 checkpoints have become outdated and counter-productive.

The WCAG 1.0 explains how to make web sites and their web content more accessible for people with disabilities, but conformance with these guidelines ultimately helps to make the web more user friendly for everybody.

W3C Standards

This site has been built using code compliant with W3C standards for XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS. It displays correctly in all current (and many obsolete) browsers, and by using validated standards compliant code, any future browsers should also display it correctly.

Exceptions

Whilst this website complies with known accessibility and usability guidelines, it is not always possible to do so to the letter of each checkpoint. Browsers and access technologies have outgrown many of the difficulties that once needed guidelines to overcome them, rendering some checkpoints obsolete.

In light of this, we are continually developing solutions that ensure the website conforms to the spirit of each checkpoint, bringing together a high standard of practical accessibility and usability throughout the website. The following exceptions are also in line with V2.0 of the WCAG.

Access Keys

Checkpoint 9.5 of WCAG 1.0 recommends providing keyboard shortcuts to important links, often called "access keys". However, these have caused problems in testing (as there is no accepted standard for their implementation, and they often clash with browser specific shortcuts), and it is now felt that these are best left off public websites.