Accessibility
"New information and communications technologies can improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, but only if such technologies are designed from the beginning so that everyone can use them. Given the explosive growth in the use of the World Wide Web for publishing, electronic commerce, lifelong learning and the delivery of government services, it is vital that the Web be accessible to everyone." Bill Clinton (American 42nd US President (1993-2001), b.1946)
Ddeaf Equality Forward aims to unite all Ddeaf people – Deaf (sign language users), deaf, deafened, hard of hearing, and deaf–blind. All of our meetings and other events are accessible:
- All of the venues we use are wheelchair accessible
- Communication support is provided – speech to text, BSL interpreter, loop system
- Lip speakers and other forms of communication support may be available on request.
Being accessible to everyone is very important to us. You can see our Accessibility Policy which explains how we try to make sure that we are accessible to everyone on the DdEF information page. Click here to go to the Accessibility Policy.
Our Accessibility Policy also covers our website.
About this site
This site has been built to web standards according to the specifications of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to promote equal access of information. This means it will work and display properly on all modern, standards compliant browsers. It has been tested on the following browsers:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0
- Netscape 7.2
- Firefox
- Mozilla
- Opera
The site validates to XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS2.
Designing to web standards means that the site has basic accessibility built in. The site also allows you to change the text size using the text size switcher on each page of the site (look right at the top of the page, above "Ddeaf Equality Forward").
A word about browsers
While this site is designed to display correctly on all modern broswers (a web browser the software that you use to use the internet), not all browsers are the same. Some browsers allow you to enlarge text, zoom in on a page, and use your own stylesheet. Firefox and Opera browsers both have a range of accessibility features that can make it easier for people with disabilities to use the internet – you can find links to their websites where both can be downloaded free on our browser accessibility guide page.
Website Accessibility
This site uses many features to make information accessible:
- all images have text alternatives (ALT attributes)
- pages will be fully functional, even with JavaScript turned off
- the text on the site uses relative font sizes so that text can be resized using either the text size switcher on the site, or your browser's text size settings
- the pages of the site use flexible formats so that pages will resize for different window sizes and screen resolutions
- page formatting is done with CSS, not tables, so that the layout of information still makes sense, even to people using screen readers
- all external hyperlinks which take you to another site are identified with a small diagonal arrow after the link (↗) and external link are identified in the ‘title’ attribute of hyperlinks so that screen reader users are aware that they are external links
- all of the pages are designed with separate cascading style sheets (CSS), so they can be replaced by your own style sheets if you use them
- plain text ‘breadcrumb trails’ are used on each page to aid navigation to previously viewed pages
- the site follows W3C accessibility guidelines.
We want all of our information to be accessible to everyone. This includes our website. We have designed our site so that you can change it to suit your own needs. Both the size of the text and the background colour of the pages can be changed. You can also switch off all formatting if you prefer a plain text version of the site.
Text sizing
The size of the text can be changed using the buttons at the top of each page or on this page (see below). You can also change the background colour of the pages and switch off formatting on this page.
The text sizer below allows you to chose from one of four sizes:
- standard text size (the default setting when you first visit the site)
- medium text size
- large text size
- extra large text size
Background colour
You can also change the colour scheme of the site. The default setting is for a white background, but you can also chose from cream, pink, and blue backgrounds. White text on a black background is also available. There are also two high contrast colour schemes (black on yellow, and yellow on black). All of these can be selected by clicking the appropriate button below and are available for all four of the text sizes.
High Contrast
There is also a high contrast style that you can choose from; black text on a yellow background. This can be selected using the buttons below.
Changing font sizes manually
If you want more control over the font, or if the text size switcher doesn't work because you have JavaScript disabled on your browser, on modern browsers you can manually adjust the text size for your browser (please note that altering this setting on your browser will affect all web sites that you visit). For details on how to change the text size on your browser, see our browser accessibility guide.
Using Access Keys
In line with the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) guidelines, we don't use access keys on this site as access keys (keyboard shortcuts, usually used by pressing two or more keys to activate a link) can conflict with system keys, keyboard shortcuts, used by various browsers. It is possible to navigate our site though without the use of a mouse, by ‘tabbing’ between links using the ‘TAB’ key on your keyboard. Once a link is tabbed onto, it can be activated by pressing the ‘enter’ key.
Navigation
Plain text links are used in ‘breadcrumb trails’ on each page to aid navigation to previously viewed pages. There is more information on these on the browser accessibility page.
