Accessibility

This page describes how to get most things on this site read out loud to you, then it lists the access keys that are available, and finally it explains how to alter the size of text.

Voice – how to listen to this web site

This web site is equipped with its own text-to-speech facility. It allows you to get the content read to you immediately without having to download any software or play around with your browser.

Brief instructions
You can start the reader off by clicking on the blue and orange Listen icon at the top of the item. If you only want to read part of the page then select the relevant text with your cursor before you click on the Listen icon, and it will just read out your selection. To stop reading simply close the reader’s pop-up window.

The built-in listen feature here can read most of the content on the site, but we haven’t set it up to read all the navigation links or the content in the resources area (which is supplied by a content partner and hosted on a different system). We have gone for something simple that most people will find very easy to use.

It is possible to alter settings such as reading speed and volume. There are detailed instructions further down this page.

Access keys available

Access keys are an attempt to make it easier to use the web if you have trouble controlling a mouse. Instead you use your keyboard to navigate around the site, pressing combinations of keys to get to important locations. That’s the theory at least, but the whole approach has suffered from a lack of clear standards and patchy support from browser vendors.

The big problem with access keys is that other software you may be running (especially your browser or specialist screen reader software) may well want to use the same key combinations for something different. To reduce the possibility of a clash happening we now support only a basic set of access keys, and limit ourselves to numbers rather than letters because the number combinations are less used by other software. Where possible we try to give the keys similar meanings to those popularised by UK government web sites.

How to use Access Keys

This depends on your browser

• Internet Explorer: Hold down the ALT key, press the number or letter of the access key, release both keys then press ENTER
• Firefox: Hold down both SHIFT and ALT plus the access key. There’s no need to hit ENTER.
• Chrome: Hold down both SHIFT and ALT plus the access key. There’s no need to hit ENTER.
• Safari on a Mac: Press the CTRL or Control key together with the number or letter of the access key. There’s no need to hit ENTER.
• Opera: Pressing SHIFT and ESC together lists all access keys available on the page. You then just press the key. So to get to the home page on this site you go SHIFT ESC, release them then press 1

Changing text size

This web site is designed to work well in different sizes of text, which you can control using either your browser’s menu system or a mouse wheel.

If you have a wheel on your mouse, you should be able to resize text by scrolling the wheel while holding down the Ctrl key. If this doesn’t work the wheel mouse is probably not using the correct driver.

You can also use the menu system of your browser to change text size. Exactly how depends on the browser.

• Internet Explorer: View menu > Text size
• Firefox: View menu > Text size
• Opera: File menu > Preferences > Fonts > Minimum font size (pixels)

Adjusting the text-to-speech settings

The software we are using to provide the voice feature that reads out text on this web site is Readspeaker Pro. As a user you don’t have to download anything. You simply click the listen button and the reading starts automatically. However, if you want to you can adjust various settings to get it working in the best way for you. Here we describe the options.

The voice control panel

This is what the listen button looks like – a blue and orange icon:

When you click the listen button, a new window opens up with a control panel (see image below) and ReadSpeaker automatically starts reading the text of the web site out loud.

Standard controls

On the left of a control panel is a tab called “Listen”. From here you can control the follow settings using your mouse or keyboard.

With your mouse you can

• Adjust the volume
• Pause the reading
• Stop and restart the reading
• Hide or show the text that is being read in a high-contrast window directly below the control panel

If you click on the progress bar in the control panel it will allow you to use the keyboard to control the following functions :

• Play or pause: Space bar
• Stop: Esc key
• Increase volume: Up arrow or the + key of the numeric keypad
• Lower Volume: Down arrow or the – key of the numeric keypad
• Fast forward: Right arrow
• Rewind: Left arrow

Detailed settings and text preferences

The Settings tab on the control panel lets control the following the reading speed using your mouse (from very low to very high). And also control the look of the high-contrast text box below the control panel.

• Choose sentence highlighting: none / light green / light blue / light yellow / underline.
• Choose the word highlighting: none / light green / light blue / light yellow / underline.
• Choose the text appearance: black on light yellow / black on white / black on light blue / black on light pink / red on light yellow / red on white / red on light blue / blue on light yellow / blue on white / blue on light pink.
• Choose the font size: -1 / normal / +1 / +2 / +3 / +4.
• Choose the font face: Arial / Times / Helvetica / Courier / Comic Sans.

More about text-to-speach

If you find the text-to-speech on this site valuable, then it may be worth investigating software that will allow you to do much the same on the other web sites you visit and documents you use. But you will need to install software on your own machine to make this more general-purpose screen reading possible.

Some versions of the Opera web browser have a very good text-to-speech feature built in – currently Opera 10 and 11 for Windows XP and the old Windows 2000. This will let you read whole pages or selected portions of a page, and can be used with the right hardware to also respond to voice input. Details at the Opera site.

For other screen reading software we recommend reading up on the subject at Abilitynet, particularly if you are considering spending your own money. This is now a fast-moving area of technology, and some of the older products are looking expensive in comparison to new free or low-cost rivals.

Further information

The BBC has recently updated its useful guide into what you can do to make browsing easier by changing the settings on your own computer. This is written in conjunction with Abilitynet

If you're new here, you may also want to visit our main web site PRIME Business Club where we provide lots of practical information to support clients.