The Oxford Limited website has been carefully designed very much with accessibility issues in mind. Every effort has been made to ensure that as many visitors as possible are able to access and use it, regardless of differing abilities or technologies used.
Compatibility has been tested with the following browsers:
Pages may look slightly different from browser to browser (for example, text displayed on Apple Macintosh browsers appears softer than that on its PC counterpart) but the over design, layout and features and functionality is the same throughout.
The site has also been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and we are confident that it meets at least the minimum requirements (Priority 1) as well as the majority of Priority 2 & 3.
The Oxford Limited website has been very carefully constructed and tuned to work with IBM Page Reader (v 3.02) and various elements have been added to help the visually impaired user as much as is possible during their visit.
Features include (but are not limited to):
All features have been tested practically with IBM Page Reader (v 3.02)
Mouseless visitors will find that they can navigate between pages by simply using the TAB key on their keyboard, links can be followed by hitting the ENTER key.
Entry fields in the online enquiry form can also be 'tabbed' between. To submit an enquiry, the mouseless visitor just needs to complete the form and tab to the submit button at its foot, then hit ENTER.
More information about accessibility and our online enquiry form is available in the Submitting an Online Enquiry section.
Additionally, 'access keys' have been assigned (on all pages) to important sections of the site. These keys (supported by most modern browsers) provide quick access to important areas, such as:
More information specifically about access keys and how to use them follows.
Many browsers now support the use of access keys on websites in order to 'jump' to important information quickly. This website has assigned access keys to a number of important pages (specific assignment as recommended by the UK Government).
To access any of these specific pages, visitors with Windows-based browsers (such as later versions of Internet Explorer for Windows) should be able to hit the relevant letter or number (as indicated below) on their keyboard whilst holding down their ALT key (with some browsers, this action may have to be followed by the ENTER key). Macintosh users should find that holding down the CONTROL key on their keyboards whilst pressing one of the access keys listed below will produce the same effect.
Access keys used on this site are as follows:
To make accessing and using the online enquiry form on this site as easy as we can for as many visitors as we can, we have used both field focus and field labels. Visitors will also find that each field in the form can be 'tabbed' to (as can the submit button) negating the need for a mouse.
Field focus highlights the entry fields (feature not available in Internet Explorer) with a contrasting border and background colour as they are tabbed or clicked into.
Field labels are applied to each field name (e.g. 'Name:') allowing them to be simply clicked on (with a mouse) in order to access the entry field itself.
Where an acronym or abbreviation is used on the Oxford Limited website (its definition unexplained and uncommon) tool tips have been employed to offer explanation. Look for text underlined with dashes (red) and hover over it with a mouse (if in use) to view its meaning or uncover a related instruction. Hover over 'tool tips' the above text for a demonstration.
Client-side scripts (such as Javascript) are not used in any part of this site, meaning that even with scripting capabilities disabled in the browser (perhaps for security reasons), the Oxford Limited website will still function normally.
Plugins (such as Macromedia Flash) are also absent, so visitors will not be required to download additional software in order to view any portion of the website.
The Oxford Limited website does not 'spawn' additional browser windows randomly or without visitor interaction (such as in the case of unsolicited advertising 'pop-ups' seen on some sites). However, in the case of re-direction to other websites (by visitor request) - e.g. from the links page or other outlets page, the new site is rendered in an additional window with the Oxford Limited website as the 'parent' still underneath. Therefore, to return to the Oxford Limited website, the visitor needs only to exit the additional window. The visitor is always informed where new windows are used to display external information.
All images used on this site have either alt tags or title tags (sometimes both) employed in order to provide an appropriate description of the image (or function behind it, in the case of images used as links) for those visitors with graphics switched off in their browsers or for those visually impaired visitors using screen readers.
The exception to this rule is in the case of images used for layout purposes only, as these offer no useful data to the visitor.
The overall layout for pages on this site has been created in valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and uses divs rather that tables to control positioning of elements.
External stylesheets (valid CSS) are employed to control page / text etc style, colours and positioning. If stylesheets are disabled in the browser, pages are still readable and fully functioning.
For the visually impaired, text sizes on this site can be increased or decreased at will by simply holding down the CTRL key on the keyboard and scrolling backwards or forwards with the wheel on a wheel equipped mouse. For users without such equipment, the same effect can be achieved by using the web browser's own text size adjustment features.
All pages are printer friendly and should print without issue on standard A4 paper. Even though the design on screen is obviously in a landscape format, visitors have no need to change the orientation of the printing. All pages should print in portrait.
Please note that, in order to facilitate A4 portrait paper printing, print-outs will be predominantly textual. Navigation and background / design images will be removed (although body images will remain).
OXFORD LIMITED, 18B New Inn Hall Street, Oxford, OX1 2DW. Tel: +44 (0) 1865 725723, Fax: +44 (0) 1865 726762
© 2005 - 2006 OXFORD LIMITED.