The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international
standards organization for the World Wide Web and sets guidelines
for websites to improve accessibility for users of all abilities.
Whilst we strive to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards
for accessibility and usability, it is not always possible to do so
in all areas of the website.
This website endeavours to conform to level AA of the W3C Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. These guidelines explain how
to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities.
Conformance with these guidelines will help make the web more user
friendly for all people.
This site has been built using code compliant with W3C standards
for XHTML and CSS. The site displays correctly in current browsers
and using standards compliant XHTML/CSS code means any future
browsers will also display it correctly. In order to benefit users
of screen readers and text-only browsers this website has been
designed so that it will degrade gracefully on browsers that do not
support CSS.
Use of images
Images that convey important information have an alternative
text attribute to allow the image to be understood with text only
browsers or screen readers. Where an image is used for a decorative
purpose the alternative text will be left blank. Wherever possible
text has been used to improve download time.
Browser compatibility
The standard supported browser versions are:
- Internet Explorer v7.0
- Firefox v2.0
- Opera 8.0
- Netscape 6.2
- Windows (NT4, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista) and Macintosh
computers (OSX).
Cascading Style Sheets
The website layout is completely controlled by Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS) and has been encoded using XHTML. By using this method
of construction the layout of the page is separate from the content
of the page; if you are using a browser which does not support CSS
then you will be presented by a pure text version of the site with
the content laid out in a logical order. This separation of content
from layout enables the site to achieve a higher level of
accessibility.