Skills for Access

Accessibility Features

We have tried to make sure that the Skills for Access web site is as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, regardless of browsing environment or disability. Here are the features that we have added to enhance the site's accessibility, plus information on how you can change the display of the site to suit your own needs.

Enhanced Page Navigation

At the top of each page is a visible 'Skip to main content' link. This allows you to bypass navigation bars and jump directly to the start of the main content of each site page.

We have used HTML to identify headings on pages, so if you use a screen reader with an option to navigate through the page from heading to heading, you can do so.

Where pages form a logical series, we use the link element to associate each page with others in the series (i.e. we identify the first, last, next and previous pages in a series)

Page Content

We have tried to make page content as easy to read as possible, by breaking content into short paragraphs and using features like lists to structure content.

We've also identified each instance of an acronym or abbreviation when used - visually they are identified by a dotted underline. We've distinguished between initialisations (such as HTML) and acronyms (such as ACCLIP), giving screen reading technology the opportunity to expand all abbreviations as appropriate. Expansions of acronyms or abbreviations also appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the word in question; they also appear in the site's glossary.

For more on screen reader behaviour with respect to abbreviations and acronyms, see Shortened forms on the Web (Sofia Celic, Accessible Information Solutions)

Changing Page Display

Pages have been designed so that if you need to, you can enlarge text using your browser's 'resize text' feature. Useful information on how to resize text in popular web browsers is available from the UK charity AbilityNet: AbilityNet - Accessibility and User Preferences

Cascading Style Sheets have been used to control the site's appearance, so if you have your own style sheet, you can apply it to change the appearance of pages. It is also possible to view the site when Cascading Style Sheets are disabled.

Other ways of changing the appearance of this and other sites include:

• IBM's Web Adaptation Technology can allow you to change appearance characteristics. For more information, see IBM Web Adaptation Technology web site
• If you have the Firefox browser, a very useful tool for changing appearance of web pages is the Accessibar. See Accessibar project web site

For printing out pages, a print style sheet is applied to reformat page content appropriately, removing unnecessary navigation features.

Graphics

Where used, graphics are provided with appropriate alternative text.

Multimedia

Given the nature of the site, we have a significant quantity of multimedia content - video, audio and animated content. But since the aim of the site is to demonstrate best practice in accessible multimedia, we have made sure that the media clips on this site are as accessible as possible. Note though that some media clips are provided as examples of how not to create accessible multimedia - so of course have access barriers present!

Every video clip has been provided with captions (subtitles) to allow people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing access to the audio content. A separate text transcript has also been provided for each clip. For information on how to turn on captions in a specific media player, see Multimedia Help

Text transcripts have also been provided for each audio clip.

Because of the 'talking head' nature of the video clips we provide, audio descriptions are only available in media clips specifically demonstrating the concept and technique of audio described video.

For people accessing the site through low bandwidth connections, rather than accessing a video comprising a monologue (i.e. with relatively little change in visual content), audio-only MP3 files of the video soundtrack are also provided.