Accessibility

This is the official accessibility statement for the Paralympics website.

Although we've tested this site extensively, there may be some aspect that doesn't work well, or could work better with your assistive technology. If so, please send your information and suggestions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . We are constantly striving to provide users with the best viewing experience possible. Thanks!

Minimum specification

This site has been tested on all of the majority browsers currently in use (including IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, Opera). Most testing was done on Windows, with spot checks on Macintosh and Linux as well. We have also optimised our pages for low bandwidth to help users with slow connections.

Because of the standards compliance we expect the web pages to display reasonably on any recent browser (up to 5 years old) and any recent computer (up to 7 years old). If you have difficulty viewing these pages and your computer and browser fit the above description, please contact our technical team at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we will try to help you.

Some of the media downloads and activities on the site may require greater computer power to get the full enjoyment of them. They contain movie clips, and require a Flash 8 or above plugin to run.

Download Adobe Reader and Flash Player.

Get Adobe ReaderGet Adobe Flash Player

 

Standards compliance summary

As far as possible, we have tried to ensure that:

  • All pages on this site use CSS for layout and should degrade gracefully on non standards-compliant Web browsers
  • All style sheets conform to W3C recommendations
  • All pages on this site use structured semantic mark-up: h1 tags are used for main titles, h2 tags for subtitles, and so on.
  • All pages comply with priority 1 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
  • All pages validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the website. On a PC you can press ALT + an access key (for some browsers you may also need to hit the ENTER key to activate a link). On a Macintosh, you can press CONTROL + an access key.

The following access keys are provided:

  • Access key S: Skip to content.
  • Access key 0: Accessibility statement.
  • Access key 1: Homepage.

Text resizing

If the text on the page is too small for you to read, you can customise your browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape Navigator or similar programme) to make the text larger. If you are using Internet Explorer, choose View then Text Size and select Medium, Larger or Largest. Similarly in Netscape, choose View then Text Zoom.

Alternatively, some browsers allow you to change the text size using the keyboard:

‘Ctrl’ key and…
• - (for smaller)
• + (for larger)
• 0 (for default size).

Links

Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article). As far as possible, links are written to make sense out of context.

Images

  1. All content images used in this site include descriptive alt tags. Purely decorative graphics include null alt tags or are displayed through the use of style sheets.
  2. Complex images include ‘longdesc’ tags or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.

Visual design

  1. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
  2. If your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets at all, the content of each page should still be readable.
  3. Information conveyed with colour is also available without colour for people who cannot differentiate between certain colours or who use devices that have non-colour or non-visual displays.
  4. We have avoided content that causes the screen to flicker.

Other

  • We have used the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content.
  • We have only used html tables to tabulate data and they have not been used to structure or lay out pages.
  • We have ensured that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported.
  • We will ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.

Further related resources

Accessibility references

Accessibility software

  • JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
  • Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
  • Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
  • Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
  • Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user style sheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.

Accessibility services

  • WebXACT, a free service to analyse web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
  • HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
  • Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
  • Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.

Related resources