Accessibility
studentBMJ.com believes everybody should have access to it's content, which is why we have strived to make this website more accessible to all user groups. Due to the sheer volume of web pages within this site, not all pages (particularly older content pages) may have been updated to the new format yet.
If you have any difficulty in accessing any of our pages, please let us know of the problem. We would also like to hear from anyone with general feedback with regards to our new site.
Contact our student web editor.
Accessibility features
Access keys
A set of access keys have been created to allow users quick access to what we believe to be the most commonly used/viewed sections of the web site. We have also tried to follow the UK goverment's guidelines for access keys and attempted to ensure the access keys do not conflict with any commonly used screen reader shortcut keys.
- S - Skip navigation
- 1 - Home page
- 2 - Current issue page
- 3 - Site map
- 4 - Search box
- 5 - Contact us page
- 0 - Accessibility page (this page)
Using Internet Explorer on Windows, users can use the access keys by using the gollowing steps:
- Hold down ALT + an access key
- Let go of ALT and the access key and press Return.
Users of the mozilla browser will not need to press the Return key. Macintosh users can use access keys by pressing the Control key instead of ALT.
Style Sheets
This web site uses cascading style sheets (CSS) to display the visual layout of its pages. If you are using a browser which either does not fully support all CSS features used in this site or does not support it at all, the markup used will allow the page to still be displayed in a readable format.
Logical Tabbing
This site has been designed with a logical tabbing structure. This means users will be able to tab through all links on this page in a clear and logical path.
Images
Images on this site (particularly images in articles) use the ALT attribute to provide descriptions for images. Images which have no importance to the content of a page have blank ALT attributes.
Colours
The colour combinations used have been checked to try and ensure users with various levels colour-blindness are still able to read the content with ease. If you experience any difficulty with the colour combinations used please contact us about this.
Font Sizes
The font sizes used on this web site are elastic, meaning they can be changed by the user to suit their own needs. Users can commonly change the font size displayed on their screen by selecting "View.... Text size" from their browser's menu. A quicker method is to hold down the Control key and press + or - to make the text size larger or smaller respectivelt.
Scripts
This web site uses a minimal amount of javascript to display content. If javascript is disabled on a user's machine the content is still available. An example of this is how the scrolling BMJ news feed on the right hand side of the page will wtill show in a static format if javascript is not available.
Links
We have strived to ensure that links can be read out of context, and that important links contain the title attribute, where possible.
Site Map and Search Function
If you are having trouble finding something on the site, you can either use the site map or the search function. The site map contains the links to all major sections and pages of the site. Using the ALT + 4 access key the search function can be easily found on any page.
Web standards
studentBMJ.com has strived to ensure that this web site conforms to as many web standards as possible.
HTML standards
The pages of this web site have been designed to conform to the standards of HTML 4.01 as set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): who are responsible for standards used by all web pages.
CSS standards
The style sheets used by this web site also verify as being valid CSS.
Web Accessibility Initiative
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) have produced a set of guidelines which contains checklists on what an accessible web site needs to be able to do. We have followed the checklists of these guidelines and have tried to make this web site as accessible as possible.
The guidelines award three levels of accessibility, they are shown below.
- A - A is the lowest standard, it is awarded to web sites which meet only the basic of accessibility requirements - something all web sites must do.
- AA - AA is the second standard. It is awarded to web sites which have gone further and meets more accessibility requirements, resulting in significant barriers being removed which affect users' accessibility of the site.
- AAA - is the highest stanard. This is awarded to web sites which have met almost all accessibility standards, resulting in only a small group of users having some form of difficulty in accessing the site.
We believe accessibility is very important and have worked hard to try and meet all accessibility requirements layed out in the checklists produced by the W3C.
Please contact one of the studentBMJ team with any feedback, queries, comments
