Accessibility

The IET is committed to providing a website that is accessible to all users.

Accessibility standards

Our website has been designed to conform to Level AA of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, complying with all Priority 1, 2 and many Priority 3 checkpoints as defined in the Guidelines.

We aim to create web pages that validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

Using the website

We aim to:

  • Create websites that are available to everyone including those with sight, hearing and motor impairment restrictions
  • Use an appropriate web font so all text is easy to read
  • Have appropriate alt tags for images to convey information
  • Ensure that navigation through our websites works in a coherent and consistent manner
  • Avoid relying on colour as the sole way of giving information
  • Avoid using images of text wherever possible, and provide equivalent text links

The following paragraphs provide some tips on how you can use the website and take advantage of features in your browser.

Text size

Content and navigation text has been designed to be easily resized for ease of reading. This can be changed within your browser, usually from within the ‘View’ menu.

Using Internet Explorer (IE8+)

On the browser menu select ‘View’

  • Click ‘Text Size’
  • Choose the size of text

Using Firefox

On the browser menu select ‘View’

  • Click ‘Zoom’
  • Click 'Zoom in' to enlarge text and non-text elements (images etc.)
  • To re-size text only, select 'Zoom text only' before using the zoom control

Chrome

In the Chrome browser you can adjust the size of everything on the web pages that you visit, including text, images and videos.

On the browser toolbar:

  • Click the "Customize and control" icon (top right)
  • Use the Zoom controls to enlarge or reduce the size of text and other elements

Text and link colours

To change text and/or colour on the site.

Using Internet Explorer (IE8+)

On the browser ‘Tools’ menu select ‘Internet Options’

  • On the General tab, under 'Appearance', select ‘Colors’
  • Deselect the ‘Use Windows Colors’ tick box
  • Select the box next to ‘Text’ (or 'Visited' or 'Unvisited') and choose a colour
  • Click on ‘OK’

Using Firefox

On the browser menu

  • Click the 'Tools ' menu
  • Click 'Options ' display the 'Options' dialog box
  • Click the 'Content' tab
  • Click on 'Colours’
  • Select text and/or link colours
  • Click on 'OK'

Chrome

There are a number of steps you can take to configure Chrome to run with custom contrast and colours:

  • Install a Chrome Extension which allows you to specify your own custom colour combinations, for instance the ‘Change Colors’ extension.
  • Use a Chrome Theme for some control of the colour scheme of the Chrome user interface. As an example, the BitNova Dark theme offers white text on a black background. The Chrome Extensions Gallery offers many other themes, with a variety of colour combinations.

Navigation

Our main site navigation is a series of drop-down tabs from the main menu at the top of the page. This provides access to the major sections of the website and links to some individual pages. Within the site, lower level navigation is provided by menus located in the left-hand column of the pages. The navigation system has been constructed in a consistent fashion to provide clear navigation pathways throughout the site.

PDFs

All links to PDFs on the website are (or should be) clearly labelled using a file-type icon.

Links to PDFs will also include the download size.

You can download Portable Document Format (PDF) documents using Adobe Reader – available free of charge.

If you would like to use a screen reader to read PDF documents you can find out more at the Adobe accessibility site.

More accessibility help

For more help about changing your browser, operating system, or computer settings to view websites in a more accessible way, go to the BBC’s My Web My Way.

Contact

We periodically review web standards guidelines and improvements in the functionality offered by browsers to improve the accessibility of our website.

If you have difficulty in accessing the content of this site, please contact the IET Webmaster and we will provide the information in an alternative format.

Email: webmaster@theiet.org