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Accessibility

We believe that everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity, respect and fairness. We commit ourselves to fairness and equality for all, operating with professionalism, integrity and openness.

The web is an important tool for many people and we are committed to ensuring our websites are accessible to, and can be used by, all who want to use them. We want to ensure that any person with a disability that affects their access to the web can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with our websites and our websites are built with that in mind.

Some facilities you may find useful are:

Listen to this website with ReachDeck

Whether you are using a Smartphone, Tablet, PC or Mac, the Reachdeck Toolbar will provide the reading support tools you require for free.


What is ReachDeck?

ReachDeck is a suite of products that provides reading support on websites. Their Toolbar reads website content out loud, highlighting each word as it is spoken in a high quality, human-sounding voice.

Other features include:

  • Dual-Colour Highlighting
  • Talking Translator
  • Secure Site Reading
  • Text Magnification
  • MP3 Maker
  • PDF Reading
  • Talking Dictionary
  • Screen Masking
  • International Languages


More than 7,000 websites use ReachDeck, so once you have it on your device you can listen to all of these websites too.

Who does ReachDeck help?

ReachDeck helps website visitors who require online reading support and those who simply prefer to listen to information instead of reading it. ReachDeck is particularly useful for those with print disabilities such as dyslexia or mild visual impairments and those with English as a second language.

How do I get ReachDeck?


Click on the ReachDeck Panel that appears on the footer of this website to launch the ReachDeck Toolbar. This toolbar provides instant high-quality speech at the touch of a button - no need to download anything. New features include PDF and secure site reading, per site and page pronunciation control and language selection.

Navigate Magna

Several features are included in our websites to make navigation as easy and graceful as possible for every web user. Our menus should be navigatable with many different types of hardware and software. For example, a person without a mouse will be able to navigate the sites.

At the top of each page, below the red banner, you will be told 'You are here >'. These 'breadcrumbs' ensure you can always see which part of the website you are on, and how to get back to where you were.

Clearly labelled pictures

All the pictures we use on the website are labelled with a clear description of what they are. These 'ALT attributes' - so called because they are an 'alternative' to seeing the picture - describe what the picture shows. This means people who cannot use images can still use the equivalent information.

The Magna style

Our websites, as with all our publications,

  • are designed to display a large contrast between colours. People who cannot differentiate between certain colours, or people with a colour deficit, should find our foreground and background colour hues to be far apart and easy to see
  • use style sheets to ensure smooth navigation for users with specialised software
  • use Plain English
  • offer a translation service to people who need it
  • do not use moving, blinking or scrolling text, which some people find difficult to read or use

Guidelines

We use W3C guidelines to ensure we meet the needs of all people who want to use our website. If you would like more information about web accessibility please visit the Web Accessibility Initiative »

If you have any comments or suggestions about our web accessibility please contact our communication team »