Accessibility statement

This site has been designed from the ground up to be as accessible as we can possibly make it. All pages should conform with WCAG AA. We didn't just stop at those guidelines from the W3C though - we follow all industry best practices. We hope we have made every possible effort to ensure that this site is as accessible as possible no matter what disabilities you might suffer, your choice of browser or the speed of your connection (we know not every person has broadband!), but if we have missed something please let us know.

Steps we have taken

Valid, semantic mark-up

Not only is our code valid but it is also semantically correct:

we don't use tables for layout;
our heading, lists and paragraphs are marked up correctly; and
we don't use any in-line styling - everything is handled by our CSS

AccessKeys

AccessKeys are simply keyboard shortcuts to specific resources (e.g. a web page). They allow users who do not or can not use a mouse to access important links via a combination of key strokes. They were introduced in 1999 and quickly achieved near-universal browser support.

Some users might be looking for our AccessKeys. Sadly, after lengthy debate over this issue it seems that whilst AccessKeys are a great idea in principle, implementing them brings with it the possibility that they either:

will not be available to all users;
will be accessed differently depending on the browser choice of the user;
the keystroke combination chosen by the website author may conflict with a reserved keystroke combination in an existing browser, adaptive technology or future user agent.

In short, implementing AccessKeys could actually cause more accessibility problems than they solve.

The W3C have acknowledged the short-coming of the existing AccessKeys implementation and are deprecating (retiring) the attribute for a device independent alternative in XHTML 2. For more information regarding this debate please read Wikipedia: Access Key.

Links

Where applicable all links have TITLE attributes, which describe the link and its destination in greater detail, and links are written to make sense out of context.

Images

All images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Where the image is used for purely decorative purposes we have included null ALT attributes.

Visual Design

Simius Web uses only cascading style sheets (CSS) for visual layout. In addition to avoiding using tables to layout the page this means you may use your browser settings to customise how you view the site according to your own preferences. For example - relative font sizes have been used, compatible with the user-specified "text size" options in visual browsers.

Even if your browser does not support style sheets the content of each page will still be readable even if it is not as pretty as intended.

Testing

We have constructed this site according to the WCAG AA standard from the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Automated and manual checks have been carried out to ensure these standards along with a whole host of other Internet best-practices have been adhered to.

Accessibility Queries

If you have any difficulties using our site please send an email to let us know. It would be helpful if your email contained the following:

the URL(s) (web-address) of the page(s) that you are having difficulties with
the nature of your disability
a description of the difficulty you are encountering

If you have a solution to suggest, please feel free to do so!