Website access
At Experience Freedom we are committed to providing our services to everyone.
That means that whether you are accessing the site with a web browser, voice browser or phone, in noisy surroundings, over or under lit rooms or trying to access hands-free, you'll still be able to get the information you need.
In order to be accessible Experience Freedom website must be easy to use and understand for as many visitors as possible. The site is designed to comply with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Level A guidelines for accessibility and we are committed to continuously working on improving the accessibility of the site.
W3C web accessibility initiative
Useful links
You can download free software from the web, and find out about accessibility features for a variety of systems. Select the links below:
• AbilityNet.com - for information about customising your computer
• My Web My Way - for information and tutorials, developed by the BBC and AbilityNet, on customising your computer
• Microsoft.com - for details about the Microsoft accessibility wizard and how to use it
• Apple.com - for details about the Apple Macintosh accessibility features
• Opera.com - for details about the Opera browser's accessibility features
• AccessFirefox.org - to enable accessibility features in Firefox and download extensions
Browser versions
We are committed to keeping the website as up-to-date as possible and accessible for all using the wide choice of browser and platforms available. As always, there is a lot of choice and various combinations.
We test a number of the most popular browser and platform combinations before releasing our updates.
If you are using much older versions of browsers you may experience some problems with the website. It is advisable to download a more recent version when prompted.
Keyboard navigation
It is possible to navigate around the site without using your mouse, using the tab and arrow keys.
- Use the arrow keys to scroll up and down a page.
- Use the tab key to jump from link to link, as well as from one object to another.
- Click return or enter to select a link.
- Use the backspace key to go back to the previous page.
PDFs
To view any Portable Document Format (PDF) you need a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is freely available if you do not already have a copy on your computer.
Clicking on a PDF link will open the file in a new browser window, where you can view or print the file.
If you click the PDF link with the right mouse button you will be given various options, one of which is to 'Save Target As...', if you select this option you can save the PDF file to your computer hard drive, and view the file whenever you wish.
PDF with Firefox
If you have a Firefox Extension called PDFDownload and have version 7 of Adobe Acrobat reader installed on your system, you will not be able to correctly download PDF documents.
You will need to uninstall PDFDownload from Firefox and this should correct the problem.
To do this, go to 'Tools' > 'extensions' and select the PDF Download extension, then click on 'Uninstall'.
Accessibility of PDFs
If you cannot use Acrobat Reader to see these documents (for example, if you use screen reader software or an audio-enabled web browser), Adobe provides a free online tool which converts them to text.
To use this service, send the web address (URL) of the Adobe Acrobat document you want to read through the web form listed below.
Download the Adobe Acrobat Online Conversion Tool
The service will return the document to you as a web page (HTML) or as plain text.
Alternatively you can choose to get it emailed to you as an attachment.
Adobe provides information about accessibility and adobe products, and Acrobat Reader 7 has a number of accessibility features.
It will also read hyperlinks and menus, so navigation becomes simpler, as well as PDF documents (using Adobe Reader 7 or 8).
Text colour and size
We have tried to use combinations of colours and font size that provide sufficient contrast to make our pages easily readable.
The pages have been coded in such a way that it should be possible for you to increase or decrease the size of the text using built-in controls on your browser.
Images
All non-decorative images will have 'alt' text descriptions - this is what screen readers will read, and if you hover the cursor over an image, the description will become visible.