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The Literary Heritage - West Midlands website aims to be as accessible as possible, within the constraints of web page design, particularly though the use of access keys and by employing a range of validation software. Its supports the Guidelines for UK Government websites, published in May 2002, and shares the same vision of serving "the largest possible audience using the broadest range of systems (hardware and software platforms) and that the needs of users with disabilities are considered".
The pages are kept as simple as possible, without using frames. Stylesheets are used throughout (CSS2) and most pages, and all new pages, are written in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. To make maximum use of features it is recommended that you use a modern browser, such as Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.x (although many features will work from version 4.0 upwards) or Netscape® Navigator 6.x. The site is tested on earlier and alternative browsers and is generally backward compatible, but with reduced functionality and more basic appearance. Use of proprietary scripts and files is kept to a minimum, with alternative methods of access that do not need special plugins. Abbreviations and acronyms are expanded to assist with speech synthesis (these can be viewed in Netscape® Navigator 6.x).
Access keys enable those who rely on a keyboard or voice input to navigate more easily. The assigned keys follow the recommendations contained within the Guidelines for UK government websites, published in June 2003, and the following are in use within this website:-
Alt+S Skip navigation
Alt+1 Home page
Alt+3 Site map
Alt+4 Search this site
Alt+8 Copyright information
Alt+0 Accessibility and list of accesskeys [ this page
]
These work in Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. As an example, to go to the Home page the keystrokes are "Alt" (keeping it pressed) and then "1". Release the keys then press "Enter" to activate the link.
Other browsers, or versions of browsers, may work in different ways. For example, in Firefox (versions 2 and 3) you need to press the shift key in addition, but do not press "Enter". Google ® Chrome 1 supported accesskeys, but version 2 did not.
Some of the software used in originally developing this resource in 2002 is listed below. Links take you to the individual websites concerned.
Page created 1 October 2002 and last updated
16 November 2009
For your literary enquiries and comments please see the Who to contact page.
Please read the general terms and conditions and about accessibility on this site, including the use of the UK government accesskeys system.
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