Web accessibility website design information

Change Text Size

Most web browsers include functionality to let you increase or decrease the size of text in a web page.

Navigator, Mozilla and Firefox

Even less information is provided about how to use the text zoom feature that is basically the same across each of these web browsers so there is little point linking to any official documentation.

To use the page zoom feature go to View > Zoom > Zoom In or View > Zoom > Zoom Out on the menu bar to change the size of the text.

Change Colours and Styles

Mozilla Firefox

There is comprehensive information on how to change various settings for fonts using the control panel which is documented at the Mozilla website.

In addition to the control panel options, Firefox does have the option to change and remove styles applied to web pages. Once again, information about this is poor but as it is fairly simple to do all you need to do is follow some simple instructions.

From the menubar go to View > Page Style > No Style.

Accesskeys

An accesskey allows you to immediately jump to a specific web page via the keyboard. In most web browsers, you can do this by pressing the Alt (PC) or Ctrl (Mac) key followed by the appropriate character. In Opera, you have to press Shift and Esc followed by the accesskey (without Alt).

The following accesskeys are the same on every web page:

Key	Command	Description
H	Home page	Opens the home page
w	Web design page	Opens the web design page
t	Hosting page	Opens the hosting page
D	Domain names page	Opens the domain names page
S	Software page	Opens the software page
C	Contact us page	Opens the contact us page
M	Site map page	Opens the site map page

Alternative Text

When an image cannot be loaded by the software being used for whatever reason, the alternative text provided is shown. While alternative text is commonly used for images, it can be used for a variety of different objects placed in a web page.

You do not have to do anything to take advantage of this feature, if your web browser supports alternative text then it will be shown when appropriate. Internet Explorer also displays alternative text as a popup message for images.

Link Titles

Most links featured in this website are assigned with a title so that when you pause your mouse cursor over them a short description appears. You can use the title to determine whether you will be leaving this website, whether an accesskey has been assigned to a link and the purpose of the link.