Accessibility

• Meeting web standards
• Design guidelines
• Browsers
• Downloadable documents
• Help with changing your settings

Meeting web standards

FirstAssist Insurance Services believes the Internet should be easy to use for everyone, including those with disabilities. With this in mind, we have adopted a policy of accessibility and have designed this website to meet current web standards.

All future development work carried out on this website will adhere to current Web Standards, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

We are doing this to ensure our sites are compliant and can be displayed by W3C standards compliant browsers.

Design guidelines

The website has been designed with these accessibility guidelines in mind:

• We make sure that navigation throughout the site works in a consistent way.
• We use a standard web font to make it easy for all to read. In most cases, the size of the font can be adjusted according to the users’ needs, using standard browser and operating system options.
• All the images are given ‘alt text’ alternatives except those which are only decorative; the tags for these are left blank.
• We never use colour as the only way to convey information.

FirstAssist has developed its own accessibility guidelines, which take into account standards and accessibility best practice from a number of sources.

Browsers

While the pages can still be accessed in older browsers, to see them laid-out correctly will require a standards compliant browser. If you would like to upgrade your browser we recommend the latest free versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer. Mac OS X users may also consider Safari.

Downloadable documents

Adobe Acrobat is required to view and print PDF documents that appear on this website. To download or upgrade this program for free, visit the Adobe website. To read PDF documents with a screen reader please link to the Access Adobe website which provides useful tools and resources.

Help with changing your settings

Your browser already includes a number of ways to change the way our web pages are displayed. Here’s how to change settings using Internet Explorer:

Internet Explorer

1. To permanently apply font and colour changes
2. To enlarge text
3. To change text and background colour
4. To prevent graphics and images appearing
5. To change the size of the window
6. To change the colour of links displayed on a screen
7. Other options
8. Other browsers

1. To permanently apply font and colour changes

• On the browser Tools menu select 'Internet Options'
• On the General tab, select 'Accessibility'
• Select the three boxes to show ticks
• Select 'OK'

2. To enlarge text

• On the browser Tools menu select 'Internet Options'
• On the General tab, select 'Accessibility'
• Tick the 'Ignore font sizes specified on web pages' check box
• Select 'OK'
• On the browser menu select 'view'
• Select 'text size'
• Choose the size of text

3. To change text and background colour

• On the browser Tools menu select 'Internet Options'
• On the General tab, select 'Colour'
• Deselect the 'Use Windows Colours' tick box
• Select the box next to 'Text' and choose a colour
• Select 'OK'
• Select the box next to 'Background' and choose a colour
• Select 'OK'

4. To prevent graphics and images appearing

• On the browser Tools menu select 'Internet Options'
• On the Advanced tab, scroll down to the 'Multimedia' heading
• Deselect the graphics options 'animations', 'videos', 'pictures' and 'images' by clicking on the boxes to remove the ticks
• Select 'Apply' then 'OK'

5. To change the size of the window

• On the browser View menu select 'Full screen' or press F11

6. To change the colour of links displayed on a screen

• On the browser Tools menu select 'Internet Options'
• On the General tab, select 'Accessibility'
• Select 'ignore colours specified on Web pages' (should contain a tick)
• Select 'OK'
• Select 'General' tab and click on 'Colours'
• Turn off the 'Use hover colours' tick box (should not contain a tick)
• Select 'Visited' and choose the colour that suits you best, Click OK
• Select 'Not Visited' and choose the colour that suits you best, Click OK
• Select 'OK' for 'Colours'
• Select 'OK' for 'Internet Options'

7. Other options

Other options such as removing animation are available:

• On the browser Tools menu select 'Internet Options'
• On the Advanced tab choose any of the options available to improve the visibility of the web pages.

8. Other browsers

There are options to change the way pages are displayed on other browsers. Please refer to your browser's help or information section for details. However, to make the most of the accessibility features on this site we recommend the use of Internet Explorer.