Accessibility information
We're committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience. We actively work to ensure that our website is accessible and usable by people of all abilities. Our aim is to meet and maintain Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
Our website has been designed and tested to work across various browsers, operating systems and devices. We support browsers including; Chrome 56+, IE11, Firefox 51+ and Safari 10, as well as a range of mobile and tablet devices including; iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and above, iPad Air 2, Samsung Galaxy s6 and Samsung Galaxy Tab A.
How to change your font size
Here are simple instructions for the most common browsers:
Google Chrome: From the menu select the customize button (≡ 3 dots) and then select Settings. In the Appearance section choose your font size from the drop-down menu.
Internet Explorer: From the main menu select View and then choose your text size from the list.
Safari: From the main menu select View > make text bigger.
Alternatively, hold down the Ctrl key and use the scroll wheel on your mouse.
Magnifying the screen
In addition to enlarging the text in your web browser, it is also possible to use electronic magnifying glasses to zoom in on areas of the screen to make it easier to read small text or to get a closer look at the images. Most PCs and Mac computers will have screen magnifiers built in, but alternative ones are also available to download - sometimes even for free.
Making your mouse cursor easier to see
Even if you scale up the text in your browser it can still be difficult to surf around if you can't find your mouse cursor. Luckily there are ways to make your mouse cursor bigger and easier to find.
Windows: From the Start menu select Control Panel > Mouse
You can change the size of your mouse cursor, add a mouse trail or make the computer show you where the cursor is every time you press the CTRL key. The options may be slightly different depending on what mouse or version of Windows you have.
Mac OS X: From the Apple menu select System Preferences > Universal Access > Mouse You can drag the slider called Cursor Size to select how large you want the mouse cursor to be.
Screen reading
It may not be sufficient to just increase the text size or use screen magnifiers. You may benefit from using a screen reader. Mac OS X 10.4 and above has this function built in, but for Windows, you will need to download software to do this.
Windows Screen Readers: Browsealoud is free downloadable software that will read web pages out loud for you. Also available for Mac OS X. JAWS is a popular professional screen reading software, and as such is also quite expensive. Window-Eyes is another professional screen reader which also has support for braille displays.
Mac OS X Built-in Screen Reader: From the Apple menu select System Preferences > Universal Access > Seeing . You can activate VoiceOver (also called Spoken Interface on older versions) which will read aloud the text to you through your computer speakers. VoiceOver which comes with Mac OS X 10.4 and above is a fully functional screen reader, just as good as the professional ones you would normally have to pay for.
Images
To make things easier for screen reader users, images have descriptive alternative text. If the image is purely decorative or part of a link, the alt text is null.
Viewing documents
Sometimes we provide information in PDF (Portable Document Format). If you can't open the PDF you can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.
Changing colours
We've tried to use colours that make our web pages easy to read, but we know that some people have trouble with reading text on certain colours. Some browsers do have options to allow you to use your own colours.