Accessibility Statement
Access Keys
We do not currently provide specific access keys for this site. Work is ongoing to establish a common set of keys to be used throughout the University website and they will be implemented here when standards are agreed.
Standards Compliance
The site complies to a minimum of the Bobby A approved standard, conforming to the priority level 1 checkpoints of the Web Accessibility Initiative's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Where possible, level 2 and 3 checkpoints have also been implemented. The HTML code has been validated to 4.01 Transitional standard using the W3C MarkUp Validation Service. The site also makes extensive use of stylesheets and the CSS code has been validated using the W3C CSS Validation Service. Users should note that, although the site supports basic rendering for legacy browsers, accessibility features are optimised for users of Internet Explorer versions higher than 5, Netscape versions higher than 4, and other browsers complying to the standards. Further improvements to the implementation of standards on this Access Guide site are planned to follow the revision of the shared core templates upon which it has been built.
The site has been built to render the full width of page content without requiring horizontal scrolling up to resolutions including 600 x 800 pixels on Windows; all key content is also viewable at 640 x 480 pixels. The site has been designed to produce acceptable hardcopy printout of the content from the browser.
Navigation
A sitemap is provided giving an overview of the site structure, and links to all the files contained in it.
A side menu is provided across all of the site, except on the sitemap and the summary tables pages where a top menu is given providing the same following content:
- Skip navigation so that a screen reader user can go straight to the content of the page;
- The site map;
- A link to the Diversity and Equal Opportunities Unit home page;
- A link to the contact information for the members of the Unit;
- A link to summary information about colleges and Private Permanent Halls which provides links to more detailed information;
- A link to summary information about departments which links to more detailed information;
- A link to the key to the summary table and the star rating system;
- A link to this web access statement.
When useful, links have been supplied with tool tips to supplement the link text by giving further information about the destination of the link.
Other navigational aids include a Search facility available near the beginning of every page, and supplementary in-page links on long pages with a large amount of content.
Summary information and college and department individual pages
We recommend that this guide is used in conjunction with the relevant undergraduate or graduate prospectus. The tables have been designed so that they are widely accessible and can be used by screen reader users. A text version of the summary information is also provided for people who for whatever reason would prefer non-tabular information.
The college and private permanent hall tables are presented on the same page to reflect the prospectus and so that, where appropriate, comparisons can be made about accommodation. The individual pages which contain more specific information about the college or permanent private hall provide navigation after the main content linking to the next or previous college, ordered alphabetically. This feature is mirrored in the use of meta data identifying this relationship between the individual colleges pages, in order to provide optimal navigation across this part of the site for users of assistive technology. Each college page also provides a link back to the summary information as well as an A-to-Z link list, to assist all users in the navigation between college pages.
The individual departmental pages are provided on a stand-alone basis, with content followed by navigation to the department summary page only.