Accessibility Guidance
Alternative Site Design
The Solicitors' Assistance Scheme web site employs two separate designs - one for normal use and one for those who may experience some difficulties with their vision. To select the high visibility option you can either click on the words 'text only site' in the horizontal utilities navigation bar or use the access key function by holding down the Alt key and typing 3 (see below). To return to the normal visibility version either click on the words 'graphic site' in the horizontal utilities navigation bar or use the access key function by holding down the Alt key and typing 4 (see below).
Text Size
All text in this web site use proportionate sizes and can thus easily be resized using the controls in your browser.
If you are a Microsoft Internet Explorer user you will need to go to the main drop menu bar and select View > Text Size. You then have a choice of five text sizes: Smallest, Smaller, Medium, Larger and Largest.
If you are a Firefox or Netscape user you can change the size of the text in one of two ways, either:
- hold down the control key and press either the plus (+) key to make text larger or the minus (-) key to make text smaller. Pressing the control and zero (0) will return you to normal text size.
- go to the main drop down menu bar and select View > Text Size. From there select either Increase, Decrease or Normal.
If you are an Opera user you can change the size of the text in one of three ways:
- hold down the control key and press either the plus (+) key to increase the size by 100% or the minus (-) key to decrease the size by 100%
- without holding down the control key, pressing the plus (+) key will increase the text size by 10% and pressing the minus (-) key will decrease the text size by 10%. The asterisk (*) key will return the browser to normal size.
- go to the main drop down menu bar and select view > zoom and then choose a size. The options arrange from 50% to 200%.
Navigating without a mouse
We realise that not all users find a computer mouse easy to manage. For that reason we have created alternative methods of navigation in the form of access keys and tab indexes.
Access Keys
Access keys are shortcuts which enable you to use the keyboard to navigate around this site without having to use a mouse or similar device. The utilities menu items have all been assigned a number from 1 to 4, whilst the main menu items use the letters of the alphabet. A full list is set out below.
In the case of the members areas and the areas of advice, the access key takes you to the welcome page for each which has in it links to the other sections within each area.
The manner of using the access key shortcuts depends upon whether you are a Windows or Macintosh user. You may find, however, that if you are using an older browser these shortcut keys may not work. If you are using a modern browser such as Firefox, you will find that all of the access keys will take you to the appropriate page. If however you are using Internet Explorer 6 or earlier, only access keys 1 - 4 will work. We hope that this will be a feature which Microsoft will correct in version 7 of Internet Explorer.
If you are a Windows user you will need to hold down the Alt key together with the appropriate number then release and press "enter".
If you are a Firefox or Netscape user simply holding down the alt key (or the alt key and Shift) and typing the letter or number will take you straight to the appropriate section.
If you are a Macintosh user you will need to hold down the Ctrl key together with the appropriate number or letter, then release and press "enter".
The access keys are as follows:
Utilities Menu
- 1 = Accessibility
- 2 = Site map
- 3 = Text only version
- 4 = Graphical version
Main Menu
- home - welcome = a
- home - confidentiality = c
- home - free initial advice = i
- home - formalised help = j
- home - help for sole practitioners = k
- about us - introduction = l
- about us - objects = m
- about us - availability = n
- members - introduction = o
- areas of advice - introduction = p
- information - introduction = q
- information - newsletters = r
- information - rules and constitution = s
- information - grievance procedures = u
- links - introduction = w
- links - support = x
- links - legal = y
The access keys for all of the menu items can be seen by holding the mouse over a menu item and waiting until the link description appears.
Tab Index
An alternative to using the shortcut keys is to tab directly to the menu item which you wish to use. We have implemented a logical tab structure which first tabs through the main menu and then proceeds through the submenu items on the left of the screen and finally the advice areas on the right of the screen.
Once you have selected the page you wish to view, the second tab on each page will move the focus of the screen into the text section so that you can use the up and down arrows (where necessary) to scroll the text on the screen. Tabbing within the text section to "return to navigation" and then pressing enter will take you back to the beginning of the menus.
Screen Reader Accessibility
A number of features have been incorporated to make this web site accessible by those using screen reader technology.
The first tab link within the navigation on each page is a "skip navigation" link which will take the user straight to the page content and miss out the navigation. The last item within the content on each page returns the user to the point in the navigation immediately after the "skip navigation" link.
Navigation
All of the navigation is based upon around unordered lists. The main menu uses javascript in order to present the lists in a collapsed format such that clicking with a mouse on the main menu item will cause a submenu to appear beneath it. Clicking again on the same main menu item will cause the submenu to contract again. Clicking on a different main menu item will also cause a previously opened sub menu to contract again.
All menus can be accessed in other ways than with the mouse. Tab indexes and access keys have already been referred to above. In addition, as the user tabs through the main menus, the 'Enter' key on the keyboard will cause the submenus to expand, following which the user can continue to tab through each sub-menu item. Pressing 'Enter' on another main item will expand the next submenu and collapse the previous one.
Images
Any images which are content related images include descriptive alt attributes. Images which are purely decorative have a null alt tag.
Links
Links to other pages within the site open in the same window as the page which is linked from. Links to documents or to other web sites will open in a new window.
Visual Design
The site has been designed so that the user can select different text sizes without the structure deteriorating too rapidly. Text areas expand and contract to accommodate the resized text. All fonts are relative so that they will increase and decrease in size in all browsers - even IE.
All text uses structured mark-ups - thus H1 tags are used for main titles, h2 and lower for sub titles.
Adobe Acrobat and Word Viewer
Additional documents on the site are available either as Adobe pdf files or as Microsoft Word files.
Adobe pdf documents (marked 
) can be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This software is provided free of charge by Adobe and can be downloaded using the following link.
Microsoft Word documents (marked 
) are accessible using the Word program. If you do not have access to this you can download a Word Viewer program which allows you to view and print, but not amend, the documents. This software is provided free of charge by Microsoft and can be downloaded using the following link.
