Accessibility

We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so adhere to many of the available standards and guidelines.

Our Approach to Accessibility

The Chartered Association of Building Engineers is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability.

We have designed our website with Accessibility in mind, with the objective of enhancing usability for all users of the site.&; We appreciate that it is important to let people access content on the website in their preferred way and by taking this approach it can benefit all users of the site not just those with disabilities. We view Accessibility as an ongoing partnership between the CABE, the supplier of the technology on which the website is built, the wider technology community such as the producers of web browsers as well as providers of specialist assistive technologies which many disabled users employ.

When building and designing pages we consider the following aspects, as laid out in our Accessibility Guidelines

Accessibility Guidelines for the Chartered Association of Building Engineers

The following areas outline the CABE’s agreed guidelines for accessibility.

Text

Body text should be specified using the following font-family definition: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Sans-serif.

Block capital letters and excessive underlines should not be used. Some users may wish to adjust text sizes because they are using a very small display or cannot read the text in its standard size. The site should support larger font’s option in browsers.

You can change the text size on this application to make it either larger or smaller via your browser settings. Some browsers will allow you to magnify the whole page. To change the text size, follow the instructions below:

Internet Explorer

• Click ‘View’ to open the View menu or press ‘Alt’ and ‘V’
• Select the ‘Text Size’ option or select by pressing ‘X’
• Choose your preferred text size using your mouse or use the up and down arrow keys
• Click to select the text size or press ‘Enter’
• The text size should change to reflect your choice

Firefox

• Click ‘View’ to open the View menu
• Select the ‘Text Size’ option
• Select ‘Increase’ or ‘Decrease’
• The text on our site should change to reflect your choice

Safari

• Click ‘View’ to open the View menu
• Click on ‘Make Text Bigger’ or ‘Make Text Smaller’ or to use the keyboard shortcuts select
• ‘Apple’ and ‘+’ (plus) or ‘Apple’ and ‘-’ (minus)
• The text size on our site should change to reflect your choice

Clarity

Content on the site will be succinct, written in clear English and easy to scan read

Links

Text used within links should be comprehensible within the general context of the page they are on, without relying on any more specific context provided by any immediately surrounding content. For instance, text such as “click here” or “more information” is not acceptable.

Make text links descriptive so that they can be understood when taken out of context e.g.:’See Key Contacts for more information ‘ not ‘ Click here for more information’

Colour

Colour should not be used exclusively to convey any information necessary to the comprehension or navigation of content.

Graphics

All graphics used to convey any information of any kind, navigational, literal or representational, must have meaningful alt and title tags.

The attribute in the image tag provides a way for you to include a text description for each visual element you have on a web page. This text is displayed when you hold your mouse over an image. Screen readers read the ALT text when they encounter an image. You should use this attribute for all images, image maps, audio and video. All graphics used purely in the construction of the page design or layout should have empty alt tags. All graphics should have width and height attributes set.

Graphics used within pages should be either gifs or jpegs, saved at 72dpi. File sizes should be optimised as far as possible, without the quality of the image degrading to an unacceptable level. The width and height used within pages should be 175pxl width by 125pxl height.

Tables

Tables used to present truly tabular information (“data tables”) should use the “summary” attribute of the “table” element to carry a description of the data within the table.

Tables used purely in the construction of the page design or layout should either omit the table “summary” attribute or employ a table “summary” attribute with an empty value.

Page Design/Layout

Pages should be constructed in a manner that allows the content to be rendered within a width of 300 characters while still remaining readable and navigable. It is understood that occasionally some content, by its very nature, may need to be reproduced with a width that necessitates a greater display area than this. However, these instances should be treated as exceptions, and should not affect the compliance of the remaining pages within a site.

The structure of content on a page should not be dependent upon the design. The content should be structured in such a way that it is accessible without the design.  The design should just enhance the content but not dictate it.

Why we believe the CABE’s Website is Accessible

Web Authors

Website Authors adding content should be aware of Accessibility Guidelines and apply this when adding content to the website

The website offers users of the site channels of communication, such contact forms, to authors on the site.

Website Authors will be responsive to any comments relating to problems accessing the content of their pages.

Text

Body text is displayed in the standard font-family definitions. The web site supports text resizing for the visually impaired.

Clarity

The use of tools within the content management system help to ensure that content is displayed in a clear and consist way, that is easy to interpret.

Links

Links on the site are instructional with comprehensive tiles and explain what purpose they serve

Colour

The use of colour is not used by itself to convey information.

Colour on logos and banners is contrasting so that it is easier to interpret

Graphics

All images on the site have tile and alt tags, are jpegs and gifs and have height attributes set.

Page Design/Layout

The site is built using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), this means that the content on the page can be viewed as the raw Hyper Text Mark up Language (HTML)

The CABE is committed to maintaining a site that is accessible and as part of that commitment we are proud to display the accreditation

For more information http://www.w3.org/tr/wai-webcontent