Accessibility

The How to use the health service in Scotland website follows best practice guidelines for accessibility.

If you need help in making the web easier to use, you can visit My web My way website. This is a joint BBC and AbilityNet website that explains the many ways you can change your browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the web more accessible for you.

If you have any problems with the accessibility of this site, please let us know so we can put it right.

Standards compliance

XHTML + CSS

Valid XHTML 1.0 TransitionalValid CSS!

The site uses valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2 throughout.

Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

Level Double-A conformance icon, W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

All pages within the site comply with the WAI WCAG Priority 2 checkpoints. Many Priority 3 guidelines have also been followed in the creation of this website.

Accesskeys

Accesskeys allow users to navigate through the main pages and content of a site without needing to use a mouse. The accesskeys for this site are:

  • s - skip to main content
  • f - text entry field for site search
  • 0 - Accessibility page
  • 1 - Home page
  • 2 - What is this about? page
  • 3 - Who is it for? page
  • 4 - Videos page
  • 5 - Resources page
  • 6 - Order a DVD page
  • 7 - Privacy page
  • 8 - Copyright page
  • 9 - Sitemap page
  • c - Contact us page

To use the accesskeys:

  • Windows: press the “Alt” button at the same time as the relevant accesskey.
  • Mac: press the “Ctrl” button at the same time as the relevant accesskey.

Navigation and links

Navigation

The menus on the site do not use JavaScript, ensuring that all pages are navigable if it is disabled.

Skip navigation

The inclusion of the "s" accesskey, which is available on all pages within the web site, allows the user to skip the navigation elements and jump to the main content of the page.

Opening links

Links within the main content of the site are clearly identified either with underlined text or a different colour.

Text and images

Use of text

Where possible, and without compromising design, text has been used instead of images on this website. Navigation, page titles, headings, links and other elements have been created using accessible HTML text.

Where possible, translations have been used for the appropriate language.

Text Size

To allow full user control over how text appears on screen, this site has been created using relative text sizes.

To increase the size of the text on the website, use the appropriate facility within your browser:

  • Internet Explorer 6: in the browser menu, select "View" > "Text Size" > "Larger".
  • Internet Explorer 7: in the browser menu, select "Page" > "Zoom" > "Zoom In".
  • Firefox: in the browser menu, select "View" > "Zoom" > "In".
  • Safari: in the browser menu, select "View" > "Zoom In".
  • Opera: in the browser menu, select "View" > "Zoom" > "+10%".

Images

All content images include descriptive ALT text attributes.

Video

Transcripts in the approprate language have been provided for all the videos on the site.

All videos on the site are available in 3 formats:

  • Flash video (FLV) for online playback.
  • Windows Media Video (WMV) for playback on Windows Media Player.
  • MPEG4 (MP4) for playback on iTunes, RealPlayer, etc.

Contrast and colour

Contrast

The site has been tested to ensure that pages provide sufficient contrast when viewed by users with colour blindness, or when viewed on a monochrome screen.

Colour

No information is conveyed through colour alone.