Accessibility

Accessibility 

At Howden we believe that the Internet should be friendly and easy-to-use for all our customers, including those who are hearing and visually impaired, as well as those with other disabilities.

As part of the Howden Accessibility Policy, we address these accessibility issues through the following means.  In light of this commitment, we’ve detailed the specific measures we’re taking to address this important issue.

The Howden website shall:

  • Have a link to a page entitled Howden Accessibility Policy.  This page will include instructions for accessing web pages on the Howden website
  • Maintain a consistent page layout and navigation method throughout the web site
  • Use consistent headings and structure throughout
  • Avoid the unnecessary use of icons, graphics and photographs
  • Use plain backgrounds and simple layouts to improve the readability of text
  • Ensure that the foreground and the background colour combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone with colour deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen
  • Provide a text-only site map
  • Provide every graphic image with an (alternative text) tag with a short description that will be intuitively understood by users. If a graphic image is used as a navigation element, it will contain a text description and directions that are intuitive to the user
  • Provide every graphic image using an image map with alternative text describing the hyperlink’s destination
  • Include photographs that contribute to the content of a page with a long description or a D to denote an alternative description.  A return link will be provided on the description page to return the user to the originating page
  • Provide descriptive, intuitive text links and avoid the use of vague references such as click, here, link, or this etc.  Also, for important short links (e.g. more) we include a link title for screen readers to provide an informative description / explanation when the mouse is hovered over the link
  • Include an alternative form of access for online forms, such as an email address or phone number
  • Avoid the use of frames since they cannot be read intelligently by screen readers (both create navigation problems and are not supported by all browsers)
  • Include both descriptive text displayed in a linear form across tables, and name the cells as a reference aid
  • Avoid background colours since colour schemes can create problems with legibility
  • Conduct testing using multiple browsers for the current versions of Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer and Lynx
  • Include a Print Page Icon function and navigation

NB: Although Adobe Systems is developing several products designed to make pdf documents more accessible to screen reading software, files in pdf format cannot currently be read by screen reading devices.  In light of this, any pdf format material is only supplementary to content provided in html format.

If you need more information

We continually review our site and modify pages to reduce accessibility issues for people with disabilities, so please don’t hesitate to send us your feedback at: [email protected]

Links to third party sites

Although Howden offers links to third party sites, these sites are not within our control and consequently, we can neither be responsible for the content or availability of those sites or those of their partners or advertisers.