Daedalus' Accessibility

The Daedalus site has been designed to be as accessible as possible whilst maintaining it's visual interest. To achieve this a variety of features have been included. These are summarised below. Click on the links to view information regarding particular accessibility issues.

Access Keys
Resizable Text
Coding to Standards
Consistent Navigation
Browser and Operating System

Access Keys

The ability to navigate the site using other means than a mouse can be important for those who have difficulties using a mouse or other pointing devices. To help with this we have set up 'Access Keys' (see below) on the site which allow easy navigation to the main pages on the web site.

As well as helping those who have difficulty using a mouse it also allows quick access to the main pages for anyone who prefers to use the keyboard.

To use the access keys on the site follow these steps;

Press and hold the "Alt" key.
Press the required letter.
If necessary, release all keys and press the return key. The browser will then load the relevant page.

Government standard

1 - Homepage
5 - Frequently asked questions
9 - Contact Us

Daedalus site specific

N - News and events
D - Development
P - Publications and documents
T - Partners
C - Community

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Resizable Text

We have not fixed the size of the textual information on the site. This allows visitors to alter the font size on the screen making the site easier to read. To change the text size in your browser follow these steps: (In Internet Explorer)

Select the "View" menu.
Select the "Text Size" option from the menu.
Select the text size you want to view.

It is also possible to increase the size of the text by holding down the "Ctrl" key on the bottom left hand row of the key board whilst using the scroll wheel on the mouse to increase (or decrease) the size of the text.

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Coding Standards

Although there are not definitive standards to use when coding we have tried to make sure our site conforms to W3C standards for HTML and CSS. Adhering to these standards makes our site accessible to those browsers that also adhere to these standards, and makes our web pages more accessible to those using screen readers and similar devices.

The site also passes the Bobby AAA accessibility tests. These tests ensure that:

images have associated 'alt' tags (i.e. text alternatives) so that visitors know what the image is meant to convey should it not load, or if the visitor has chosen to browse with images switched off (or browsing with a screen reader or similar browser that does not display images)
text size can be altered by the visitor if required (see Resizable Text, above)
text contrasts sufficiently with the background and is easily distinguishable for colour-blind visitors

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Consistent Navigation

We have kept the navigation consistent throughout the site. All the top level pages and sections are available from every single page on the site.

Other consistent navigational aids include the site map and the section headers. If you have any comments about the navigation on the site please contact the Daedalus Team: daedalus-project@seeda.co.uk.

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Browsers and Operating Systems

The Daedalus web site has been designed to work correctly with Internet Explorer version 5 and later.

It will also work adequately with the following browsers and operating systems although it may not display perfectly:

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Browsers:

Internet Explorer 5 and later
Netscape 6 (Mozilla) and later
Opera
Safari (for the Macintosh)
Operating Systems:

Windows 9x, NT, 2000 upwards
Unix/Linux
Macintosh OS 9 upwards

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Screen Settings

This web site's pages will look and function as intended, at a display setting of either 800 x 600 pixels, or 1024 x 768 pixels. This should satisfy the vast majority of users. The pages will also work at 640 x 480 pixels, although some non-functional elements may not be fully displayed on the page and it may occasionally be necessary to scroll horizontally.

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PDF

The Daedalus site makes use of Adobe® PDF files. These are usually opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader, but that does not make them accessible to all users. A solution to this is offered by Adobe at their PDF conversion page.

The URL (exact location) of a PDF file will appear in the web browser when it is selected. If that URL is copied and submitted at the PDF conversion page, it will be converted to HTML and in that form it should then be accessible.

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