Accessibility on the Internet

BlackStar is committed to making our site easy to use. We create our own guidelines following principle laid down by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) including:

  • Using meaningful ALT text for all images to provide descriptive text.
  • Using descriptive hyperlink text.
  • Avoiding the use of frames, which are difficult for special browsers to interpret.
  • Using an easy to see web colour scheme.
  • Using an easier to read non-serif font type, size and colour.

We have built this site using cascade Style Sheets (CSS) which means you can use this site on a wide range of browsers. It also allows you to alter the way you can view any web site, from the size of text to the colour of hyperlinks.

Most of our visitors use Internet Explorer and you will find some instructions about how to alter some settings for this below. Microsoft offer full accessibility help with their products and you can access this using "Help" in your browser toolbar.

Possible browser accessibility options include

  • Enlarge text
  • Change text and colour background colour
  • Avoiding the use of frames, which are difficult for special browsers to interpret.
  • Using an easy to see web colour scheme.
  • Using an easier to read non-serif font type, size and colour.

Ignore page defined font colour, size and style

  1. On the browser Tools menu, select "Internet Options"
  2. On the green tab, select "Accessibility"
  3. Click on the three boxes to show ticks
  4. Click on "OK"

Enlarge Text

  1. On the browser Tools menu, select "Internet options"
  2. On the General tab, select "Accessibility"
  3. Tick the "Ignore font size specified on web pages" check box
  4. Click on "OK"
  5. On the browser menu, select "view"
  6. Click "text size"
  7. Choose the size of text

Change text and background colour

  1. On the browser Tools menu, select "Internet Options"
  2. On the General tab, select "Colour"
  3. Deselect the "Use Windows Colours" tick box
  4. Select the box next to "Text" and choose a colour
  5. Click on "OK"
  6. Select the box next to "Background" and choose a colour
  7. Click on "OK"

Stop graphics or images appearing

  1. On the browser Tools menu, select "Internet Options"
  2. On the Advanced tab, scroll down to the "Multimedia" heading
  3. Deselect the graphics option "animations", "videos", "pictures" and "images" by clicking on the boxes to remove the ticks
  4. Click on "Apply" then "OK"

Change the colour of hyperlinks

  1. On the browser Tools menu, select "Internet Options"
  2. On the General tab, select "Accessibility"
  3. Click on "Select ignore colours specified on Web pages" (should contain a tick)
  4. Click "OK"
  5. Select "General" tab and click on "Colours"
  6. Turn off the "Use hover colours" tick box (should not contain a tick"
  7. Select "Visited" and choose the colour that suits you best, click OK
  8. Select "Not Visited" and choose the colour that suits you best, click OK
  9. Select "OK" for "Colours"
  10. Select "OK" for "Internet Options"

Other Options

Other options such as removing animation are available:

  1. On the browser Tools menu, select "Internet Options"
  2. On the Advanced tab choose any of the options available to improve the visibility of the web pages.