Accessibility
While we make every attempt to ensure you get
the most out of this website, you may find you can improve your
browsing experience by altering particular browser settings. Below, we
show how to change the settings for common web-browsers.
When in doubt, check your browsers built-in documentation.
Internet Explorer (IE)
Change font sizes in IE
• IE7: From the Page menu, choose the Text size option
• IE6 and below: From the View menu, choose the Text size option
Change colour and font settings in IE
1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options
2. Select the Accessibility... button (bottom right)
3. By checking the desired checkboxes, you can force the browser to ignore the colours, font styles and font sizes
Disable images in IE
1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options
2. Select the Advanced tab (top right)
3. Scroll down to the Multimedia section
4. Untick the checkbox labelled Show pictures
Mozilla Firefox
Change font sizes in Firefox
• From the View menu, choose the Text Size option
Change colour and font settings in Firefox
1. On OSX: With Firefox in focus, select the Firefox menu, followed by Preferences
2. On other platforms: From the Tools menu, choose Options
3. Select the Content tab. To select fonts:
• Within the Fonts & Colors section, select the default font and size from the drop-down menus
• Clicking the Advanced... will display a new dialog. To enforce
your previous font selection, untick the checkbox Allow pages to choose
their own fonts, instead of my selections above
4. To select colours:
• Within the Fonts & Colors section, click the Colors... button
• The dialog that appears allows you to select a colour palette that best suits you
• To enforce your colour selection, untick the checkbox Allow
pages to choose their own colours, instead of my selections above
Disable images in Firefox
1. On OSX: With Firefox in focus, select the Firefox menu, followed by Preferences
2. On other platforms: From the Tools menu, choose Options
3. Select the Content tab
4. Untick the checkbox labelled Load images automatically
Further help
If your browser isn't covered here, or you would like more in-depth
information, visit My Web my Way, an online guide that explains the
various accessibility features provided by your web browser.
Features of site
Descriptive link text
When the author of a site uses descriptive link text, all links on the
page will make sense even when read out of context. For users of
assistive technology (e.g. Screen-readers) this can allow them to
quickly jump through pages of text to find relevant links.
Meaningful ALT attribute on images
Most images on this site contain additional 'alternate' text that is
stored with the image. This allows users who otherwise wouldn't be able
to see the image access to the stored information. Although this can
help users of assistive technology (e.g. Screen-readers), this also
applies to visitors who disable images because of a slow internet
connection.
Any image that is considered purely decorative will have a blank
alternate text (e.g. alt=""). This reduces the amount of unnecessary
content on the page.
'Skip to Content' links
Some browsers and assistive technology 'linearize' the content, meaning
that all content is shown in the order it appears in the HTML code.
When browsing a site in this way, a great deal of time is spent
bypassing the common elements on each page you view. To improve the
experience for users of alternative browsers (such as screen readers or
mobile phones), hidden navigation has been added to all pages which
allows the user to skip directly to the content. This navigation will
only be shown when the user's browser is unable to understand Cascading
Stylesheets.