Advantage West Midlands' ICT Cluster is committed to making this website accessible and usable to all, regardless of technological or physiological impairments.

Our website was designed following comments from our customers to ensure it meets your needs. We will continually check how user-friendly our site is by gaining ongoing feedback and undertaking user testing. We have incorporated the following aids to navigation on our website:

• ‘breadcrumbs’ at the top right of the page
• link back to ‘Home’ on every page
• a search tool that is visible throughout the website

W3C Standards

This site’s code has been built along the W3C’s (World Wide Web Consortium’s) guidelines for XHTML and CSS in an effort to ensure correct display in both current and future web browsers.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities. This website has been developed in accordance with WCAG version 1.0. The site is designed to comply with Level AA, with the exception of some functional items which will be at Level A.

Accessing this website without a mouse

Keyboard shortcuts are intended to help website users who have difficulty in using pointing devices such as a mouse. This website uses the UK Government accesskey system. The keyboard shortcut commands available are as follows:

Depending upon browser type, please use one of the following:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, 6 - press "alt" and the letter then press the enter key
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 - press "alt", the letter and press the enter key
• Safari (Mac) - press the "CTRL" key and press the number or letter of the access key

The following are the shortcut keys used within the site as per the recommended UK Government accesskeys standard:

S - Skip navigation
1 - Home page
3 - Site map
4 - Search
9 - Feedback form
0 - Access key detail

Changing font size and and colours

You can change how this website looks in terms of font sizes, colours and even background colours, by altering the settings in your web browser. The following guidelines can be used by users of Internet Explorer to enlarge the size of the text and control the colours on display screens.

Microsoft Internet Explorer for PC

Open Internet Explorer Web Browser
Select 'Tools' from the menu at the top of the window
From the options which appear, select 'Internet options....'
Click on the 'General' tab
Click on the button marked 'Accessibility'
To change the font size, select the checkbox marked 'Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages'
To remove background and font colours, select the checkbox marked 'Ignore colours specified on web pages'
Click OK (and again if necessary)
Select 'View' from the menu at the top of the window
From the options which appear, select 'Text size'
Select the desired text size

Microsoft Internet Explorer for Apple Mac

Open Internet Explorer Web Browser
Select the 'edit' menu at the top of the window
From the options menu which appears, select 'preferences'
Click on 'web content'
Deselect the button marked 'show style sheets'
Return to the list of preferences
Click on 'web browser'
Select 'language/fonts'
Select the font size required

Further information

The BBC has launched My Web My Way - a website containing comprehenisive information to help users make browsing easier.

The site provides advice and help to all those people who would benefit from making changes to their browser, operating system, or computer to be able to view the web in a more accessible way.

If you experience any problems with this website, please contact us via the details on the contact us section. Equally, we welcome your feedback on how we can make our website more accessible and usable for you.