While we make every attempt to ensure you can get the most out of this website, you may find you can improve your browsing experience by altering particular browser settings. Below, we show how to change the settings for common web browsers.

When in doubt, check your browser’s built-in documentation.

Internet Explorer (IE)

Change font sizes in IE

IE7: From the Page menu, choose the Text size option

IE6 and below: From the View menu, choose the Text size option

Change colour and font settings in IE

From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options

Select the Accessibility… button (bottom right)

By checking the desired checkboxes, you can force the browser to ignore the colours, font styles and font sizes

Disable images in IE

From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options

Select the Advanced tab (top right)

Scroll down to the Multimedia section

Untick the checkbox labelled Show pictures

Mozilla Firefox

Change font sizes in Firefox

From the View menu, choose the Text Size option

Change colour and font settings in Firefox

On OSX: With Firefox in focus, select the Firefox menu, followed by Preferences

On other platforms: From the Tools menu, choose Options

Select the Content tab. To select fonts:

Within the Fonts & Colours section, select the default font and size from the drop-down menus

Clicking the Advanced… will display a new options panel. To enforce your previous font selection, untick the checkbox Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above

To select colours:

Within the Fonts & Colors section, click the Colors… button

The options panel that appears allows you to select a colour palette that best suits you

To enforce your colour selection, untick the checkbox Allow pages to choose their own colours, instead of my selections above

Disable images in Firefox

On OSX: With Firefox in focus, select the Firefox menu, followed by Preferences

On other platforms: From the Tools menu, choose Options

Select the Content tab

Untick the checkbox labelled Load images automatically

Further help

If your browser isn’t covered here, or you would like more in-depth information, visit My Web My Way, an online guide that explains the various accessibility features provided by your web browser.

Features of the site

Descriptive link text

When the author of a site uses descriptive link text, all links on the page will make sense even when read out of context. For users of assistive technology (e.g. Screen readers) this can allow them to quickly jump through pages of text to find relevant links.

Meaningful ALT attribute on images

Most images on this site contain additional ‘alternate’ text that is stored with the image. This allows users who otherwise wouldn’t be able to see the image access to the stored information. Although this can help users of assistive technology (e.g. Screen-readers), this also applies to visitors who disable images because of a slow internet connection.

Any image that is considered purely decorative will have a blank alternate text (e.g. alt=””). This reduces the amount of unnecessary content on the page.