Accessibility and site help

Features that help you to use this web site

We intend that you should find this site accessible and easy to use, whatever your chosen web browser, computer or other web-enabled device. This page sets out some information that you might find helpful when using this web site.

Accessibility

Our web site developers followed current best practice accessibility guidelines to ensure that the site is accessible to everyone, regardless of disability. If you find a specific problem viewing or reading this site, please let us know by sending an email to web[at]scottish-investigators[dot]co[dot]uk (replace [at] with @ and [dot] with .) and we will see what we can do about it.

We have set out below some specific information that you might find helpful when using our web site. For a wider explanation of the many ways you can change your browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the web more accessible for you, we highly recommend the BBC My Web My Way site.

Text size adjustment

If you are using a visual browser, you can change the size of the text for more comfortable viewing.

  1. Most browsers have text size adjustment options under their View menus. In Internet Explorer, for example, you can make your default text size larger under the View menu (located on the toolbar) by selecting Text Size, Larger (or Largest).
  2. If you have a wheel mouse, many browsers allow you to increase or decrease the text size by holding down the Ctrl key (Command key on Mac) while you move the scroll wheel up or down.
  3. Most browsers let you increase or decrease the text size by holding down the Ctrl key (Command key on Mac) while pressing the + or − keys respectively.

Internet Explorer version 7+, Firefox version 3+ and Opera all have a “zoom” feature, which changes the magnification of the page view including the images on the page: methods 2 or 3 above operate the zoom effect on those browsers. In Firefox, if you want to zoom the text but not the images, go to the View menu, then select Zoom, Zoom Text Only.

Navigation with the tab key

If you navigate using the keyboard rather than a mouse, you will find a discreetly concealed link at the top of the page that lets you skip past the main content to the primary navigation menu. This link is spoken by screen reading software, and becomes visible when you tab to it.

Tabbing thereafter follows a logical order through any links and form fields in the page content, then the links in the navigation menu. In modern graphical browsers, when you tab to a link or form field, its appearance changes to indicate that you are “focused” on it.

Additional navigation aids

Each page has “relational” home, next, previous or other appropriate links to aid navigation in text-only browsers. If you use SeaMonkey (formerly Mozilla) or Opera, you can take advantage of this feature too:

Printing pages from this web site

If you have a modern browser that supports Cascading Style Sheets for print media, when you print a page only the text and any pertinent images will be printed: superfluous matter such as navigation menus will disappear. (Please see our copyright notice concerning printing.)

Downloadable documents

Although not part of the primary content of this web site, we may from time to time offer for download some documents published by the Association. Such documents may be under copyright and other legal restrictions, and are designed for print. For these reasons we provide the downloadable versions in Portable Document Format (PDF). To read or print these documents, you will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader, which is available free of charge for a range of operating systems from the Adobe web site.

Design standards and compliance

In acknowledgement of the UK Disability Discrimination Act requirements in so far as they apply to web sites, every page on this site meets Conformance Level Double-A of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. The code for all pages complies with the HTML 4.01 (Strict) and CSS 2.1 specifications.

This site uses JavaScript to provide small enhancements for those visitors whose browsers understand it. However, the site does not rely on JavaScript (or on any plugin) to deliver its core content or services.

By complying with these standards and practices, we aim to assure maximum compatibility between the pages on this web site and current and future web browsers and assistive technologies employed by disabled internet users.

[Picture: Eilean Donan Castle, near Dornie, Scotland]