Accessibility Information

Website accessibility

Website accessibility

We have taken great great care in ensuring that this website and it's content is accessible to as wide a range of users as possible. Please get in touch if you feel there is anything further we can add to aid your experience.

W3C XHTML Validation

XHTML is the next generation of HTML. It is designed to move the standards developed for HTML forward so that devices (such as printers, phones, televisions or visual aides) can display web pages without needing the page translated. XHTML is also compatible with older browser technologies so that users are not forced to upgrade their computers.

All pages in this website validate using the W3C XHTML Markup Validation Service, and all pages comply with all priority 1 checkpoints of the W3Cs Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 which gives this web-site a conformance level of "A". Validation was gained using the Webxact Watchfire Validator.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and semantic mark-up

This website utilises Cascading Style Sheets that allow web pages to be designed and controlled separately from the content. Pages created with CSS files tend to be far smaller - and download quicker.

The code for all pages is written clearly and semantically, which means that browsers will render/load the pages quicker as there is no unnecessary code to trawl through. It also means search engines can crawl the pages easier thus giving higher rankings in their results, and alternative browsers such as screen readers have a much clearer understanding of a page's content and hierarchies.

Accesskeys

The W3C introduced the support of accesskeys to enable users to select the appropriate key on their keyboards and navigate to a particular link. Accesskeys can also be useful to people who have trouble controlling the mouse and clicking on links.

This site utilises the following accesskeys to navigate within the site:
1 - Home page
2 - Latest news
3 - Open Days
4 - Courses
5 - Work examples
6 - Facilities
7 - Staff
8 - International
9 - Bath Spa Live homepage

V - Video comments
P - Partners
L - Links
C - Contact
B - Bath Spa University homepage

A - Accessibility Information

Flash and Javascript content

This website uses a variety of multimedia content to help us give you, our audience, the best insight into what the School of Music and Performing Arts is, and does. Where video and audio content is used within the website, it is displayed using the Adobe (previously Macromedia) Flash Player. The choice was made to use this plugin as it functions extremely well cross-platform on both Windows and Apple Mac computers, and is the plugin with the greatest usage across the internet. If you don't have the Flash 8 Plugin (or later) on your computer you can download it for free from the Adobe website.

In certain areas, this website uses Javascript to enhance the user experience. Whilst we highly recommend Javascript is enabled on your browser (which on most browsers it is by default) so you can experience our website as it is intended, you will still be able to access our website and all key information without Javascript.