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Accessibility

This website is Accessible.


Below are a number of additional notes and recommendations of interest to visitors to the website who are using assistive technologies or mobile devices, or who may have restrictions on the use of Flash or Javascript due to company policy or device limitations.

Flash and Screen Readers and PDA's

If you are wanting to use a screen reader such as JAWS or Window-eyes to listen to the website then it is recommended that you use at least version 6 of Flash Reader, the latest version of which you can download quickly and easily from Macromedia.

Navigation and content is available even if you do not have Flash or Javascript activated.

However, you may find the website even easier to listen to (all those 'embedded flash' and 'flash button' phrases spoken by screen readers can get wearisome) by switching to the Low Graphics mode. This displays the same content and navigation but it has been created for users of screen readers and PDA's so that they get the content first, without Flash and Images.

Screen Reader Setting Recommendations

Users of screen readers should note that this site makes use of Title and Acronym, and so will gain more from the site if they configure their screen reader to pick up these attributes.

For users of JAWS we recommend the following sort order 'title|text|alt|href' as the best combination to set.

Access Keys

Access Keys provide a quick way to navigate round the site without using a mouse.

The keys are used in conjuction with Alt or Ctrl and Enter keys which vary depending on your browser.

1. Hold down

  • 'Alt' key if using Internet Explorer for Windows
  • 'Ctrl' key if using Mozilla/Firefox, or if using Internet Explorer or Safari on a Mac
  • 'Shift' and 'Esc' together if using Opera (note Opera ignores numeric Access Keys)

2. and simultaneously select a key from the list below

3. then press 'Enter' if using Internet Explorer for Windows PC - other browsers go to the page immediately.

  • 0 - Skip Navigation to Main Content
  • 1 - Skip to Main Navigation links
  • 2 - Skip to Section Navigation links
  • 3 - Skip to the Content of the page
  • 4 - Skip to the Footer content of the page
  • h - Skip to the Homepage
  • s - Skip to the Sitemap
  • a - Skip to the Accessibility statement and help
  • p - Skip to the Privacy Policy
  • l - Skip to the Partners & Links page

These keys have been selected so as not to conflict with those in use by assistive technologies such as JAWS, Supernova and HomePageReader.

External Sites

The Scottish Government is not responsible for the content or accessibility of other sites linked to from this site.

Links and Images

Note that for all links to documents on this site, the type and file size is shown. Typically a 100 kilobyte file will take about 15 seconds to download on a 56K modem.

All trivial images have null Alt text.

Problems Accessing Documents

If you have any problems accessing the information or documents published on this website, please contact the Scottish Government.

Validation

The site html code was validated against XHTML 1.0 Transitional, using the W3C and Web Design Group validators, and its styles are CSS2 compliant.