Shropshire Routes to Roots

Accessibility information and access keys

Access keys

Access keys provide keyboard shortcuts to commonly used pages on a site and offer an alternative form of navigation. They work in Mozilla Firefox but only in Internet Explorer version 4 and above and in Netscape version 6 and above.

To use access keys in Mozilla Firefox version 1, press and hold the ALT key (or CTRL for Macintosh users), then press the relevant letter or number. In version 2, press and hold both Shift and ALT, then press the relevant letter or number. Please note that the number access key strokes did not work until version 2.0.0.1.

To use access keys on Internet Explorer, version 5 or later, press and hold the ALT key (or CTRL for Macintosh users), then press the relevant letter or number. Finally, press ENTER.

To use access keys on Internet Explorer 4 or Netscape 6 and above, press and hold the ALT key (or CTRL for Macintosh users), then press the relevant letter or number.

The Guidelines for UK government websites (opens in a new window) recommend the use of the same basic access keys across all UK government pages. The access keys used on this site follow this standard, and are as follows:

• Alt+s Skip navigation links and jump straight to content
• Alt+1 Home page
• Alt+3 Site map (and a Google search box)
• Alt+8 Terms and conditions (with Copyright information)
• Alt+0 Access Key details (this page)

Basic standards

The Routes to Roots website aims to conform to all the W3C accessibility guidelines (opens in a new window) up to Priority Level 2. It meets many of the checkpoints at Priority Level 3.

The W3C guidelines give a detailed breakdown of the requirements for accessibility. In more general terms, the list below gives the principal standards applied to Routes to Roots:

• Pages are designed to allow users to scale fonts and adjust screen resolutions to suit their preferences. To adjust the size of the font, go to 'View-Text Size' (for Internet Explorer) or 'View-Text Zoom' (for Netscape Navigator).
• CSS2 stylesheets have been used to ensure users can apply their own visual settings if they want.
• XHTML 1.0 Transitional has been used to ensure compatibility across most browsers, past, current and future.
• No additional software or plug-ins are required to access the site. Where Javascript has been used, alternative HTML-only versions of pages have been provided.
• Access keys are provided to allow users to navigate the site via the keyboard.
• All pages are 'printer-friendly'. This means they will print out without coloured backgrounds, and without unnecessary links or logos.

Verification

A range of software was used to ensure that the above standards were met. In particular, the following checks were carried out:

• Stylesheets were checked using the W3C CSS validator.
• HTML was checked for accuracy using HTML Tidy on Chami's XHTML Kit, and against the W3C validator. Individual pages can be checked by following the link on the W3C XHTML icon at the bottom of each page.
• Pages were checked for accessibility using A-Prompt, the W3C checkpoints for accessibility and an online version of Watchfire's Bobby.
• All links were checked using Xenu's Link Sleuth.

If you experience any issues or difficulties in using this site, please go to the Who to contact page.

Return to top of page