Accessibility
We have tried to develop this website with accessibility and ease of navigation in mind. We have endeavoured to follow accessibility guidelines and will continue to as an on-going process. In particular we have made sure that:
- All images have ALT tags associated with them to give an alternative text description of the image.
- All hyperlinks used in the menu provide a description about that menu item. (Note for Firefox users: Firefox has a long-standing bug that truncates long descriptions, but there is an add-on that solves this issue. This bug has been fixed in V3.)
- We have tried to minimise, where possible, the use of tables as a means of providing pure page layout. We are gradually re-writing the few pages that do rely on tables for presentation purposes. Where used, tables have a summary element for use by screen readers.
- Our site does not use frames except to embed the Google calendar used for the Benefice Diary.
- The fonts we use are scalable, and text size can be enlarged using browser facilities.
- We have provided a number of keyboard shortcuts for navigation.
- We offer different colour schemes - see change colour scheme.
Site navigation
Each web page on our website, below the heading, is split into two panes: the left-hand pane containing site navigation information (the menu); the right-hand pane containing the main page content.
If you are navigating through a page using the keyboard instead of a mouse, then the tab key will tab through the menu items first before reaching the main content.
To make navigation easier, there is a set of shortcut keys (or access keys) defined - for example, access key S will skip the navigation section and jump to the main content (the skip navigation link to the top right of the page achieves the same thing). The tab key will now navigate you through links in the main content pane. Access key T will return you to the top of the page, and access key M to the start of the navigation pane.
The more common menu items also have their own access keys, so that these can be used to move quickly to certain pages.
Access Keys
| Access key | Use |
|---|---|
| ALT + T | Top of page |
| ALT + M | Top of Menu |
| ALT + S | Skip navigation |
| ALT + A | Access key table |
| ALT + Y | Diary menu item † |
| ALT + W | Weekly notices menu item |
| ALT + N | News headlines menu item |
| ALT + C | Church of England News menu item |
| ALT + R | Regular services menu item |
| ALT + P | Daily prayer menu item |
| ALT + E | Email directory menu item |
| ALT + L | Links menu item |
| ALT + H | Home page menu item |
(† I know ALT + D is the obvious choice here, but Internet Explorer V7 has commandeered this key combination to move the focus to the address bar)
In general on Windows use the ALT key + the relevant access key:
- For Microsoft Internet Explorer use ALT + access key, followed by the enter key
- For Google Chrome and Safari use ALT + access key
- For Firefox V2 and V3 use ALT + SHIFT + access key
For Macintosh systems use the CTRL key + the relevant access key