What we’ve done to help you

Visual design

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) have been used to control the presentation of pages on this site. If CSS is switched off or not supported, you should still be able to use this site as it has been written using valid, structural XHTML.

Writing

We have tried to write in clear and concise English, and have made use of readability statistics and tests to make sure this is the case. We have also considered guidelines for assisting readers with dyslexia.

Forms

We have made use of accessibility guidelines to make our forms accessible and usable. For instance, you can:

• select a form item by clicking on its name;
• follow visual highlights to see where you are in the form;
• see and access related form items grouped together under a common heading;
• tab through form elements in the correct order.

Modern browsers

We have tested our website against Internet Explorer (v.6.0), Mozilla Firefox (v.1.0.7), Opera and also run some testing in Safari. If you are experiencing difficulties in a different browser or older browser version, please let us know.

Our aim

Explore Living is committed to taking steps to ensure that this website is accessible to everyone who needs to use it.
Despite our best efforts, you may encounter issues which we have not yet addressed, are in the process of addressing or have overlooked. If you do have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact us. We can only improve with your help and feedback.

What is accessibility?

Accessibility is a term used to describe the extent to which a website can be satisfactorily accessed and used by all the people who may need to use it. Accessibility refers specifically to how well a website meets the needs of users with disabilities.

“Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web.”

(World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative)

Most people using this website will be using a browser and navigating with a mouse. However, for people whose vision is impaired, or living with some other disability, this may not be the case.

If someone can’t use a browser or a mouse or a keyboard without adjustments, he or she needs a website to be made so that it can also be read or viewed as originally intended in a wide range of devices and media.

Conformance and standards

All our pages should comply with many of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium. We are currently trying to develop our website according to commonly accepted web standards, and are investigating ways to improve accessibility and usability with these.

Accessibility and usability

Web accessibility also benefits people without disabilities. For example, a key principle of Web accessibility is designing Web sites and software that are flexible to meet different user needs, preferences, and situations. This flexibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as people using a slow Internet connection, as well as people with:

“'temporary disabilities' such as a broken arm, and people with changing abilities due to aging.”

At Explore Living, we are building our business around the needs of our customers. With this in mind, we have designed and developed our website with the input and assistance of potential customers. This has helped us to identify what tasks our customers are trying to achieve, how they refer to these tasks, and how they might group these tasks together. Do let us know, however, if you are struggling with anything: we can always make our website better meet your needs.

Plug-ins

We make use of Adobe Acrobat pdf (portable document format) documents and Adobe Flash files on this website. To fully enjoy this website it is suggested that you download the latest versions of these software plug-in items.