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Accessibility

We want to make sure you get the most out of our website. Here are some tips to help with accessibility. When in doubt, check your browser's built-in documentation.

Internet Explorer (IE)

Change font sizes:

  • Internet Explorer 7+: from the ‘Page’ menu choose the ‘Text size’ option
  • Internet Explorer 6 and below: from the ‘View’ menu choose the ‘Text size’ option

Change colour and font settings:

  • From the ‘Tools’ menu choose ‘Internet Options’
  • Select the ‘Accessibility’ button (bottom right)
  • By checking the desired checkboxes, you can force the browser to ignore the colours, font styles and font sizes which would normally display on this website

Disable images:

  • From the ‘Tools’ menu choose ‘Internet Options’
  • Select the ‘Advanced’ tab (top right)
  • Scroll down to the ‘Multimedia’ section
  • Untick the checkbox labelled ‘Show pictures’

Mozilla Firefox

Change font sizes:

  • From the ‘View’ menu choose the ‘Text Size’ option

Change colour and font settings:

  • On OSX: with Firefox in focus, select the Firefox ‘Menu’ followed by ‘Preferences’
  • On other platforms: from the ‘Tools’ menu choose ‘Options’
  • Select the ‘Content’ tab

To select fonts:

  • Within the ‘Fonts & Colors’ section select the default font and size from the drop-down menus
  • Clicking the ‘Advanced’ tab will display a new dialog. To enforce your previous font selection, untick the checkbox ‘Allow pages to choose their own fonts instead of my selections above
To select colours:
  • Within the ‘Fonts & Colors’ section click the ‘Colors’ button
  • The dialog that appears allows you to select a colour palette that best suits your preferences
  • To enforce your colour selection, untick the checkbox ‘Allow pages to choose their own colours instead of my selections above’

Disable images:

  • On OSX: with Firefox in focus, select the Firefox ‘Menu’ followed by ‘Preferences’
  • On other platforms: from the ‘Tools’ menu choose ‘Options’
  • Select the ‘Content’ tab
  • Untick the checkbox labelled ‘Load images automatically’

Further help

If your browser isn't covered here, or you would like more in-depth information, visit the BBC’s online guide My Web my Way which explains the different accessibility features provided by your web browser.


Features of our site

Descriptive link text

When the author of a site uses descriptive link text, all links on the page will make sense even when read out of context. For users of assistive technology (e.g. Screen-readers) this can allow them to quickly jump through pages of text to find relevant links.

Meaningful ALT attribute on images

Most images on this site contain additional 'alternate' text that is stored with the image. This allows users who otherwise wouldn't be able to see the image access to the stored information. Although this can help users of assistive technology (e.g. Screen-readers), this also applies to visitors who disable images because of a slow internet connection.

Any image that is considered purely decorative will have a blank alternate text (e.g. alt=""). This reduces the amount of unnecessary content on the page.


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