BIG Accessibility Statement

At the Big Ideas Collective we want you to experience a great website that is truly accessible, regardless of what technology you have or your abilities.

An ongoing process, we continue to work to improve our site and use the current standards and guidelines as our base from which to build. If you have any feedback about how we’re doing, please contact us.

So, how is our site built to maximise accessibility and usability?

All pages use structured semantic markup. H1 tags for main titles, H2 tags for subtitles, e.g. Opera users can skip sections by using "S" and "W" to move forwards and backwards respectively through headings. JAWS users can skip to the next section by pressing ALT+INSERT+2.

On this site structural mark up web pages include three different areas:

1. A left bar that includes the main navigation
2. A main content area
3. A footer

When CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are not applied to a document (or when using a screen reader), these three areas are read in the above order.

Visual Design on our website

We use cascading style sheets for our visual layouts.

We use only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers. Additionally, users can alter the font sizes on the website, by clicking the relevant type size buttons at the bottom of each page.

If your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets at all, the content of each page will still be readable.

Any information conveyed through the use of colour is also available without colour (i.e. text based).

Images on our website

All images have suitable alt and title attributes.

Content should be usable/accessible with images disabled.

All image-based links and content use techniques that make them accessible and useable to non-visual browsers.

Links on our website

All our links have title attributes which describe the link in more detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target; links are written to make sense out of context.

Website addresses (URLs) are permanent whenever possible.

All links that lead to third party websites should open in a new window.

Forms on our website

All form controls are appropriately and explicitly labelled and we provide a telephone number as an alternative form of access for our online forms.

Validation

All pages on our site validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and should be entirely compatible with all major current and future browsers.

Exceptions

Whilst we strive to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards for accessibility and usability, it is not always possible to do so in all areas of the website.

Access Keys

Please note: Checkpoint 9.5 of WCAG 1.0 advises the use of 'Access keys' to allow for page navigation. This website does not use Access Keys, as research has shown that they increasingly conflict with functionality of modern browsers and assistive technology. This guideline is due to be removed with the release of WCAG 2.0.

Pre-filled form fields

Please note: Checkpoint 10.4 of WCAG 1.0 advises that text fields in forms should be pre-filled with default text. Research shows that this guideline is outdated and unnecessary. This guideline is due to be removed with the release of WCAG 2.0.

That’s it folks! If you have any queries at all, please feel free to contact us about this statement or indeed any aspect of our site.