Navigating with the keyboard
Access keys
Access keys are enabled throughout this website to allow quick keyboard access to important pages. The chosen keys are a partial implementation of the UK Government accesskeys standard:
- 0: Access keys and accessibility information (this page)
- 1: Home page
- 3: Site map
- 4: Search
- S: Skip navigation
In most browsers, hold down the Alt key and press the appropriate number. In Internet Explorer you then usually have to press Enter.
Navigation bar
- If Javascript is enabled in a recent browser, the banner at the top of the page containing drop-down menus for navigation can also be controlled using the keyboard. Hold down CTRL and press the down arrow/cursor key to enable keyboard access (instead of CTRL, you may also use ALT or META). You can then move between menus using the left and right arrow keys, move between items in the selected menu using the up arrow key, and choose a page to view by pressing Enter. The down arrow key is also available, but it causes scrolling in some browsers. To close the menus, press CTRL and down again.
- Due to variations in support for key events, this may not work in every browser on every operating system. It operates correctly in most recent PC browsers, but is less reliable on Macs.
- If Javascript is disabled or an old version, the drop-down menu system is replaced with a drop-down list and a go button. Keyboard access to these controls is the same as for any other online form.
Navigating with the mouse
- Navigation of the website is mostly via the banner at the top of the page. In most modern browsers, hovering over the name of a menu, identified by the
 icon, will cause a menu to appear. You can then simply click on an item in that menu to navigate to that page.
- In a few browsers, notably Safari, there may be a gap between the menu names and the menus that appear. In this case, moving between the two will cause the menu to vanish, making it very difficult to choose an item. Clicking on the name of the menu will force it to remain open until you either click on the name again (to close it) or select another menu (by hovering over its name). Note that this works in all browsers, not just Safari - some users might find this more convenient.
- If Javascript is not enabled in your browser, or it is an old version, you will get an alternative banner containing a drop-down list and (if necessary) a go button. Scroll down through the list for the page you need, and click on it. If the page does not load automatically, click on the go button.
- A site map is also available, which contains simple text links to most pages of the website.
Legibility and stylesheets
No system has currently been implemented to allow the default stylesheet to be replaced with a more legible one. However, most of our content inherits font sizes from the browser stylesheet or uses font sizes relative to the browser's default size. If you find the text too small to read, you can use the increase font size feature of your browser.
Support for non-visual browsers
In most cases, the content of the website will be available to users with text-only browsers or similar tools (although the presentation may leave something to be desired). In rare cases the navigation bar will become an irritating source of text - if Javascript is not available, however, this should hopefully be kept to a minimum.
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