A website accessible to all

We have used our knowledge and understanding of how different people access the internet to develop a website that is clear and simple for everybody to use. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact us, as we are continually striving to improve the experience for all visitors.

The Helping Hands website has several features designed to make it as accessible as possible to users with impairments or special requirements. We will continue to develop our in-house editorial guidelines to ensure we produce accessible content.

We have used the XHTML 1.0 and CSS specifications created by the W3C, as we believe that usability and accessibility must have a solid foundation. We have also endeavored to achieve AA accessibility as measured against version 1.0 of the WCAG. We are aware however, that a number of the checkpoints of the WCAG are subjective – and although we are sure that we have met them squarely, there may be instances where interpretation may vary.

The website uses cascading style sheets for visual layout. In browsers which do not support style sheets, the flow of content has been tested to ensure it completely retains its sense. A separate print style sheet is used to remove unnecessary navigation elements.

The website’s primary navigation is located at the top of each page. Predominantly secondary navigation elements are contained in the left-hand column, however this does not appear on all pages. A link to the home page is available on each page through the Helping Hands logo. All navigation elements are marked up as HTML unordered lists and styled with CSS.

All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H1 tags are used for main titles, H2 tags for subtitles.

All content images used in this site include descriptive alternative text attributes. Where an image is used for a decorative purpose the alternative text will be left blank.

We use JavaScript on this website to improve the experience for most of our users. However some of these enhancements can become an inconvenience in certain conditions, so we have ensured the site is still accessible when JavaScript has been disabled.

Font sizes can be changed by altering your browser settings. This website has been built using relative font sizes, and will seamlessly adapt to user requirements.

Foreground and background colours on this website have been selected to provide a proper level of contrast for ease of reading.