Accessibility

Using the Site

The website has five main areas:

The header contains fixed links to accessibility areas and search options, including a keyword search facility. This navigation remains the same on all main FCO services web pages.

The left side column contains the FCO Services main global navigation. This navigation remains the same on all main FCO Services web pages.

The middle column is the information area. The middle column also includes the breadcrumb trail. The breadcrumb trail is a navigation aid that shows you where you are on the website and allows you to quickly access upper levels of the site.

The right side column contains links, which will change dependant upon the information in the middle column.

The footer, at the bottom of the page, contains fixed links to website terms and conditions, freedom of information, and privacy statement. This navigation remains the same on all FCO Services web pages.

Access Keys

Most browser's support jumping to specific links by typing certain keys defined on the website. In Windows, you can press ALT plus the listed access key; on Macintosh, you can press Control plus the list access key. Pressing ENTER will then take you on to that page.

All pages on this site define the following access keys:

Access Keys

S	Skip navigation
1	Home
2	What's new
3	Sitemap
4	Search
5	About us
7	Contact us
8	Terms and conditions
9	Email update
0	Accessibility statement
T	High or low contrast text versions
C	High or low contrast graphical versions
R	Registered area
E	Event management
I	ICT
L	Language services
F	Freedom of information
P	Privacy statement

Text Only

The text version of the website does not show images, although you will still be able to see any text associated with an image. The text version of the website loads more quickly, is easier to copy from, is compatible with Screen Readers and is less expensive to print (if you have a colour printer).

Images

All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Decorative graphics include null ALT attributes. Complex images include LONGDESC attributes, which explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.

Visual Design

This site uses cascading style sheets (CSS 1) for visual layout. This site uses relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers. If your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.

Controlling text and colours in your web browser

You can specify the font sizes and foreground and background colour of web pages displayed on your computer screen. This is useful if you have low vision, need larger fonts, or need high-contrast colours.

If you use the Internet Explorer or Netscape browsers to view the Internet, the following guidelines will enable you to enlarge the size of the text and control the colours on your screen.

Microsoft Internet Explorer for PC

• Open your Internet Explorer Web Browser.
• Select 'Tools' from the menu at the top of your window.
• From the options which appear, select 'Internet Options...'
• Click on the 'General tab'.
• Click on the button marked 'Accessibility'
• To change your font size, select the checkbox marked 'Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages'
• To remove background and font colours, select the checkbox marked 'Ignore colours specified on Web pages'
• Click OK (and again if necessary).
• Select 'View' from the menu at the top of your window
• From the options, which appear, select 'Text Size'.
• Select your desired text size.

Microsoft Internet Explorer for Apple Mac

• Open your Internet Explorer Web Browser.
• Select the 'edit' from the menu at the top of your window.
• From the options menu which appear, select 'preferences'
• Click on 'web content'.
• Deselect the button marked 'show style sheets'.
• Return to the 'list of preferences'
• Click on "web browser".
• Select 'language/fonts'.
• Select the font size you require.

Instructions for users of Netscape Navigator

Text:

• Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
• Open the Appearance group and click the 'Fonts' category.
• Next to'For the encoding' should read Western to tell the computer which types of letters and symbols to use. From 'Size' select 18.
• Next to the Varible Width Font field is a drop down box: Select 'Arial'.
• The Fixed Width Font box should already read 'Courier New'. From 'Size' select 18
• To override the fonts used by the designer of the web page, select 'Use my default fonts overriding document specified fonts'
• Click "OK".

Colours:

• Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
• Open the Appearance group and click the 'Colours' category.
• Select a colour button to change colours of text, background, unvisited links or visited links
• To override the colours used by the designer of the web page, select 'Always use my colours, overriding document'
• Click "OK".

Colour Contrast

This site has the option 'Change Contrast' (see link at top of the page). This increases the page contrast by switching the text to yellow and the background to black. This could help some people to better read the site's content. The page can easily be chnaged back to normal contrast by clicking again on the 'Change Contrast' link.

Accessibility statement

FCO Services is committed to ensuring accessibility of its Web site for people with disabilities. New and updated Web content produced by our organisation will conform to W3C/WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, Conformance Level AA.

Standards Compliance

Most pages on this site comply with all priority 1 and 2 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

This site validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

The stylesheets on this site are CSS 1.

Use of Assistive Technologies

Assistive technologies are products used by people with disabilities to help accomplish web tasks that they cannot accomplish otherwise or could not do easily.

Some assistive technologies rely on output of other user agents, such as text browsers, voice browsers, multimedia players and plug-ins. Assistive technology comes in many different forms, some of these include;

1. Alternative keyboards
2. Braille
3. Screen magnifiers
4. Screen readers
5. Speech recognition
6. Scanning software
7. Tabbing through structural elements
8. Text browsers
9. Voice browsers

All our newly developed web pages are tested against as many types of assistive technologies as we can to make the pages more accessible. If you are unable to access any information using any assistive technology then please contact us and we will try to find an alternative way for you to access or be provided with the information.