A major benefit of the World-Wide-Web is that the user can control how web pages are displayed on a computer screen, mobile phone, or other device. Blind users can also control how the web pages are read out loud by a screen reader, even identify key page elements such as headings, links and lists. However most disabled people are not blind and access the web using a standard web browser. The following notes are designed to help these people improve their browsing experience by changing the accessibility options within their existing browser, or using the keyboard instead of the mouse.
A well designed website should work properly on any browser or other web-enabled technology and respond to and changes made to the user's accessibility options. Information about the accessibility measures that we took is available at the end of this page.
Using the accessibility options in your browser
Changing the text size and screen resolution
Depending on which web browser you are using, this can be done in the following ways:
- Internet Explorer: select View > Text size
- Mozilla Firefox: select View > Zoom
- Opera: select View > Zoom
- Safari: select View > Make text [Bigger / Smaller / Normal Size]
Alternatively you can change the resolution of your computer screen to make the entire screen display bigger or smaller. Depending on which sort of computer you are using, this can be done in the following ways:
- Microsoft Windows computer: select Start > Control Panel > Display > Settings
- Apple Macintosh computer: select System Preferences > Displays > Resolution
Help with navigating our site
Using your mouse to navigate our website
If you are using a Microsoft Windows computer, you can change a number of control options on your mouse, including the speed of the pointer or the wheel, how quickly you need to double-click, and swapping the buttons for left and right-handed use.
To change your mouse options click the Start button in the bottom left of your screen and select Control Panel > Mouse.
If you are using an Apple Macintosh computer, please visit the Apple Accessibility website for more information on how to change your settings.
Using your keyboard to navigate our website
It is easy to navigate our website using your keyboard. This can be done using the following keys:
- Arrow keys to scroll up or down the page
- Tab key to move between links
- Return or Enter key to select a link
- Backspace key to go back to the previous page
Help with accessing PDFs on our website
If you are having trouble reading a PDF document on this website, Adobe offers a free online tool for converting PDF documents to HTML or text. To use the tool you will need to know the URL (web address) of the document you want to convert. This can be found in the browser address bar at the top of the screen and begins with http://
Help with finding out more accessibility options
The BBC's 'My Web, My Way' website is a useful resource for anyone who has difficulty browsing the internet. The site explains the many ways you can change your browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the whole web more accessible to you.
About accessibility and the measures we've taken
Web accessibility is the practice of making website content available to all users, particularly those with disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. It includes making a website as accessible as possible regardless of browsing technology, such as for people with text-only web browsers and old browser versions.
Accessibility measures
Some of the measures we have taken to ensure our site is accessible include:
- All our web page content is prepared in basic text format
- Our website uses relative font sizes to enable users to change the size of text on the page
- We use alternative text for all images on our website
- All our web pages use valid HTML
- We conduct regular validation checks to ensure the HTML code of our web pages is valid
- We perform periodic audits of our site against WAI Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints and fix any errors
Compliance with web accessibility is an ongoing process which we are regularly working to improve. If you experience problems accessing any of the information on our site, please contact our web team at web@userite.com and we will try our best to fix the problem or provide the information in an alternative format.
Browser compatibility
The design and functionality of this website has been tested on the following browsers and platforms:
- Browsers: Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 1.5, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Opera 9.5
- Screen readers: Jaws, Supernova, Window-Eyes
- Text-only browser: Lynx