Accessibility

Active Assistance is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website, and in doing so adhere too many of the available standards and guidelines for accessible web development including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The WCAG is a set of guidelines and design principles laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), an international community that develops standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web.

These standards explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. We endeavour to confirm to priority 2 of the WCAG guidelines. In order to meet this level of compliance we have developed our website using standards compliant XHTML and CSS, we have ensured the website displays correctly in current web browsers and by using standards compliant code, we have ensured the website will continue to display correctly in all future web browsers. We have also provided alternative \"views\" of the website to aid users with visual impairment. In addition, we have developed our code to ensure that visitors can use the website even with key web browsers features such as JavaScript and CSS style-sheets, turned off. We have also checked our website against code validation software to ensure we meet the criteria for WCAG priority 2 compliance.

Text resizing

This can be activated through the ‘AAA’ links at the top of the page. (Please note: our text resizing feature is dependent on JavaScript being turned on.) Where our text resizing feature is not available, you can achieve the same result independently by following these instructions:

  • PC / Internet Explorer 6 From the top menu bar, select View and point to Text size
  • PC / Internet Explorer 7 From the menu bar underneath the search field, select Page and point to Text size
  • PC / other browsers Increase text size: Hold down the CTRL key and press + Decrease text size: Hold down the CTRL key and press -
  • Mac / all browsers Increase text size: Hold down the Command key and press + Decrease text size: Hold down the Command key and press -

Changing CSS layout

This can be activated by using the accessibility device at the top of the page. (Please note: this feature is dependent on JavaScript being turned on.) Where our style-sheet changing feature is not available, you can achieve the same result independently in some web browsers by following these instructions:

  • PC / Internet Explorer 6 this feature is not available
  • PC / Internet Explorer 7 from the menu bar select View then Style and choose a style-sheet from the menu.
  • PC / Internet Explorer 8 from the menu bar select View then Style and choose a style-sheet from the menu.
  • PC / Firefox from the menu bar select View then Page Style and choose a style-sheet from the menu
  • PC / Opera from the menu bar select View then Style and choose a style-sheet from the menu
  • PC / Safari this feature is not available
  • PC / Google Chrome this feature is not available
  • Mac / Safari this feature is not available
  • Mac / Firefox from the menu bar select View then Page Style and choose a style-sheet from the menu
  • Mac / Opera from the menu bar select View then Style and choose a style-sheet from the menu

Further Information

We have undertaken the following actions to ensure equal access to our services from our website:

 

  • Standard fonts are used throughout the site for easy legibility.
  • Wherever possible, we use live text instead of graphics to reduce the download time of pages and increase your control.
  • No information is exclusively conveyed using colour. This does not mean that colours are not used to organise information, instead it means there are also other, non-colour dependent ways of doing so.
  • The majority of our pages are designed so that they are without horizontal scrollbars when they are viewed at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.
  • All images, where appropriate, have an alternative text attribute. This means that when an image is conveying important information its content is described with an alternative text. If an image is used for decorative purposes only, the text attribute for the image will be left blank.
  • A link to details of how to contact us for further information offline is provided from every page.
  • Style of navigation remains consistent through the website.

    • We have attempted to comply specifically with:

  • Priority 2 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and, where possible, Priority 3 guidelines. The elements covered by the Priority 3 guidelines are not, in most cases used by our sites, however as the sites develops such functions we will aim for compliance at this level.

The home page of this website:

  1. Is WCAG 1.0 approved, complying with all guidelines of the Web Accessibility Initiative.
  2. Is Section 508 approved, complying with all guidelines of the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines,
  3. Validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict,
  4. Complies with CSS 2, and uses structured semantic markup.

We have endeavoured to make all pages throughout the website validate to the same compliance level as our homepage.

We have ensured our website is usable in the majority of web browsers including: (but not limited to)

PC

  • Firefox (>2)
  • Internet Explorer (8)
  • Internet Explorer (7)
  • Internet Explorer (6)
  • Opera (9)
  • Lynx

Mac

  • Safari (4.04)
  • Firefox (3.6)
  • Opera (9.01)

Since our website is content managed, this statement is subject to regular change and accessibility compliance levels may vary.