Accessibility
Accesskey Settings
In order to aid navigation around this site, the following keyboard Accesskeys are enabled. Information on how to use these shortcuts can be found below.
- h - Homepage
- s - Search the Site
- q - Help
- w - Privacy Policy
- e - Disclaimer
- r - Feedback
- t - Accessibility
How to Use Access Keys
Accesskeys are selected in different ways according to which browser you use:
- Internet Explorer 5+:
- Hold down the ALT key and select the number/letter of the access key, then press ENTER.
- Internet Explorer 4:
- Hold down the ALT key and select the number/letter of the access key.
- Internet Explorer 5+ for Mac:
- Hold down the CTRL key and select the number/letter of the access key.
- Internet Explorer 4.5 for Mac:
- Access keys are not supported.
- Netscape 6+:
- Hold down the ALT (CTRL for Macintosh) key and select the number/letter of the access key.
- Netscape earlier versions:
- Access keys are not supported.
- Mozilla and variants (including Firefox and Camino):
- Hold down the ALT (CTRL for Macintosh) key and select the number/letter of the access key.
- Safari (Mac OS X):
- Hold down the CTRL key and select the number/letter of the access key.
- Omniweb (Mac OS X):v
- Hold down the CTRL key and select the number/letter of the access key.
- Opera 7.5+:
- Press SHIFT+ESC, followed by the number/letter of the access key.
Accessibility
The St Francis of Assisi website has been designed to be accessible to as many users as possible, and to meet or exceed current UK accessibility legislation and internationally accepted guidelines.
The templates present on the system have been contructed with the aim of conforming to, at least, the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to at least priority 2 level (Bobby AA).
The templates were tested by Clicks and Links during each stage of design and construction using the Bobby test and the Webexact test, which both use the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to check website accessibility. As these online tests are carried out by computer and are not always capable of interpreting the coding, where the tests presented warnings implying accessibility problems, manual checks were carried out to ensure that the errors and warnings raised by the tests were valid and then were fixed if necessary.
Accessibility Features and Considerations
The following list details some of the features of the site and accessibility considerations taken into account when designing the websites.
- Cascading Style Sheets
The St Francis of Assisi website layout is completely controlled by Cascading Style Sheet (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. - Links
Linking text have been written to make sense out of context. This will aid users viewing the site using a screen reader. Care has also been taken to ensure that the user can differentiate between links and standard content text. Where possible, the use of images as page links has been avoided. If there are any image links, effort has been put in to provide an equivalent text link. - Images
All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics are either applied using CSS, or include empty ALT tag attributes. Images used for headings are applied using CSS - since the heading exists as text behind the graphic, ALT attributes are unnecessary. - Font Sizes
You may change the font size of this document, either via the preference-settings of the user's browser. Additionally, all modern browsers (with the exeption of Internet Explorer for Windows) allow resizing of text via the keyboard using CTRL ( for Macintosh) and the '+' or '-' keys. - Colours
This site's font and background colour combinations have been checked against the different colour blindness conditions and ensured that all information is still clear. Information which has been represented in colour and/or on a coloured background has been checked so the contrast between the colour does not render the information unreadable. - Tables
In the Clicks and Links website design, tables are only used for tabular data and not for layout. Where tables are used in the content inputted by Clicks and Links, they contain tabular data only and have been labelled with appropriate table summaries. - Navigation shortcuts
In addition to Access Keys, use of the Tab key to navigate through the page has been ordered to fascilitate ease-of-use for those who rely on the keyboard for navigation. - Cross-Browser Issues
The layout and design of the sites have taken different browsers into account. The sites were tested on both Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla/Firefox browsers with additional testing taking place on Home Page Reader for visually impared web users. If the layout had problematic elements between browsers, then the design was made to perform best on Internet Explorer (due to it's current status as the most popular web browser) and then worked on to display to near-perfect on the other browsers.
Accessibility References & Software
- W3 accessibility guidelines
Explains the reasons behind each guideline. - W3 accessibility techniques
Explains how to implement each guideline. - The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA)
- JAWS
A screen reader for Windows. - Home Page Reader
- Lynx
A free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays. - Firefox
A standards-compliant, secure visual web-browser with many user-configurable accessibility-related features, including: text zooming; user stylesheets; image toggling. A free download is available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and other operating systems.