Access Statement

In the interests of helping to make the web accessible and usable by everyone, including people with physical, visual, or other impairments, accessibility features have been implemented on this site.

Design

This site uses cascading style sheets (CSS) for visual layout. All pages are built using structured markup so that if your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets (or you choose to turn them off), the content of each page is still readable. Very basic styles are implemented for Netscape 4 owing to its quirky interpretation of CSS.

This site uses relative font sizes so that you can adjust the size of the text if you find it too small or too large. Access this feature with the View > Text Size option on the menu bar at the top of the browser window. In Netscape 6+, Mozilla and Firefox browsers, you can also adjust text size by holding down the CTRL key and pressing the + and - keys. Windows users with a wheel mouse can adjust text size by holding the CTRL key and turning the wheel.

Navigation

Navigation is consistent throughout all pages of this site. Every page includes links to the Text Only version (access key 1) and the Search form (access key 4).

All pages include a "skip navigation" link to bypass the navigation bar. This enables users of text-only browsers and people navigating with tab keys rather than a mouse to jump straight to the page content. (On visual browsers this link is invisible if your browser deals correctly with cascading style sheets.)

All links can be followed in any browser, even if scripting is turned off.

Web Standards

All pages on this site meet the Priority 1 requirements of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; many of the Priority 2 and 3 requirements are also met. Further accessibility modifications are under review.

Most pages on this site now validate to the HTML 4.01 Strict specification. Non-validating pages are under review. All style sheets validate to the W3C standard.

Images

• All content images include descriptive ALT attributes
• Structural graphics have been given null ALT attributes

Font Size

To make the site easier to read, you can increase the size of the fonts displayed on this web site using settings built into your web browser software.

If you are using Internet Explorer:

• Click Tools › Internet Options › Accessibility
• Check the 'ignore font sizes specified by Web pages' box

If you are using Netscape:

• Click Edit › Preferences › Appearance › Fonts
• Change size (pixels) to preferred settings

Older versions of Netscape may not allow you to override this web site's font size settings. A solution could be to upgrade to a more recent version of the Netscape browser.

If you are using Opera:

• Click File › Preferences › Fonts & Colours
• Change minimum font sizes as desired

If you are using other browsers, or cannot change font sizes, please view help information that is provided. This can usually be found within the browser software itself.