Accessibility

At Help Musicians we are committed to making our website accessible to everyone, regardless of the technology or the ability of the user.

We are always working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and adhere to available standards and guidelines.

The following highlights the various issues we have addressed with the objective of achieving a high level of accessibility:

Navigation

• The navigation is logical and consistent throughout the website
• Clicking on the Help Musicians logo at the top of any page will take you back to the homepage
• Breadcrumb trails highlight the location of each page within the site structure
• There is a site search at the top of each page

Text

• Content is written as clearly as possible in a clear, readable font.
• Headings are clear and follow a logical structure
• Text size can be changed in most browsers by using View > Text Size in the browser menu bar or using the key combination of Ctrl and “+/-”.

Links & buttons

• Links are written to make sense out of context
• Links open in the same window unless linking to external websites or otherwise stated
• Links within content are identified by being underlined
• Ensure buttons have appropriate sizing for touch and stylus interaction

Downloads

• Downloadable documents will include filename, format and file size
• To read PDF documents you will need to have the Adobe Acrobat reader which you can download for free from the Adobe website, and also learn more about PDF accessibility

Images

• All graphics and images in our website have alternative text that describes the contents or function of the image, when appropriate. This description will be displayed when images are turned off, on a text-only browser or as a ​‘tool tip’ in certain browsers when the mouse pointer is moved over the image

Colour

• Colours usage on our site has been considered so they provide sufficient contrast for all users to read the pages easily
• Focusable items have a high-contrast focus ring when tabbed to using a keyboard

Forms

• Form fields have appropriate text labels, fieldsets and legends
• Form validation errors are displayed alongside their invalid inputs, including setting appropriate error states

Multimedia

• Videos have not been set to play automatically.

Animation

• We use subtle animations to help enhance the design of the site. However these should respect the CSS media query ​‘prefers reduced motion’ and be disabled if appropriate.

We have also included features that are particularly useful for those using assistive technologies. These include:

• A Skip Navigation link at the top of the page allowing users to jump straight to the main content of the page
• All the pages on our website are ​“device independent” and can be navigated by using a keyboard, mouse or combination of the two
• Valid, semantic HTML with appropriate element landmark roles and ARIA attributes
• Unique ​‘title’ meta value for each page
• Heading elements in logical sequential order, with a single h1 element per page
  
• Provide visually hidden additional context or instruction to assistive technologies where appropriate

While every attempt has been made to make this site accessible, it does include technologies and features that may cause accessibility issues. These include:

• Adobe PDF downloadable documents
• Microsoft Word downloadable documents

We make every effort to overcome these limitations by improving their accessibility and where possible, will provide accessible alternatives. If however you experience any accessibility problems with our site, please contact us.

Help Musicians does not assume responsibility for third party applications.

• Links present on some pages allowing you to share content on your Twitter or Facebook accounts are supplied by a third party application
• Use of third party video players means video controls may not be fully accessible

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the common standards followed on accessible websites. This website aims to conform to level AA of the WCAG v2.0.

The website has been developed to conform to W3C standards for HTML (HyperText Mark up Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Additional technologies including JavaScript have been used but the site is not reliant on these to provide access to content.