Accessibility statement

This is the official accessibility statement for Sense Scotland. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at

Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. On Windows, you can press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, you can press Ctrl + an access key.

All pages on this site define the following access keys:

• Access key x - Go to main content of the page
• Access key z - Go to navigation
• Access key 1 - Go to Home page
• Access key 3 - Go to Sitemap
• Access key 4 - Go to Accessibility Statement (this page)
• Access key 6 - Go to Useful Links
• Access key 9 - Go to Contact us page
• Access key 0 - Go to Search field

Standards compliance

1. All pages in this site have been written to and validate as XHTML 1.1 Strict. Feel free to check the home page for XHTML validity.

2. Our website has been set up with content negotiation so that if you use an Internet browser that doesn't fully support XHTML, such as Internet Explorer. The website will alter slightly to become Standard compliant HTML 4.01
3. The style sheets used in this site have been written using valid CSS. Feel free to check our stylesheets for validity.

4. All pages in this site have been written to be AAA approved, with the WCAG in mind and we beleive that all priority 1, 2, and 3 guidelines of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 have been met.

5. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. h1 tags are used for page titles, h2 tags are used for main titles and h3 tags for subtitles. This means that JAWS users can skip to the next section within the accessibility page by pressing ALT+INSERT+3.

Navigation aids

1. All pages include a search box (access key 0).
2. The site also contains a sitemap (access key 3).

Links

1. Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article).
2. All links are written to make sense out of context.

Images

1. All images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. There are no decorative graphics.
2. Complex images include LONGDESC attributes or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.

Visual design

1. This site avoids using tables for visual layout and instead uses cascading style sheets.
2. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
3. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable and logical.

Accessibility references

1. W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
2. W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
3. W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.

Accessibility software

1. JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
2. Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
3. Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
4. Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
5. Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user stylesheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.

Accessibility services

1. Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
2. HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
3. CSS Validator, a free service for checking that style sheets conform to published CSS standards.
4. Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
5. Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.

Related resources

1. WebAIM, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving accessibility to online learning materials.
2. Designing More Usable Web Sites, a large list of additional resources.
3. A list apart, large number a articles from some of the world's leading web design experts. Many of the accessibility and CSS articles were used to help build this site.
4. Dive Into Accessibility, 30 days to a more accessible web site.
5. Guild of Accessible Web Designers GAWDS is a world-wide association of organisations and accessible web designers and developers - designed to both promote and protect standards - not technical standards - but accessible design standards.