Accessibility
Accessibility
We hope you’ll find the Paintings in Hospitals website easy to use. We’re committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability.
We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website. We endeavour to conform to level Double-A of the World Wide Web Consortium W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities and help to make the web more user-friendly for everyone.
“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web
Whilst we strive to adhere to these guidelines and standards, it is not always possible to do so in all areas of the website. We are continually seeking out solutions that will bring all areas of the site up to the same level of overall web accessibility.
In the meantime should you experience any difficulty in accessing our website, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Where possible use an up-to-date browser
By using an up-to-date browser (the program you use to access the internet) you will have access to a much richer set of options to aid you as you navigate your way around this site.
The standard browsers we would recommend are below with links to install each of them:
Once installed, each will bring its own selection of accessibility options and may allow further options via the use of plug-ins. For more details see the Accessibility page for each one:
Options in our site
Alternative Style
Please choose a link below to change the way the site looks. Once set, the site will remain in this style for up to 30 days or until you select a different option.
We endeavour to ensure the site looks correct is these different styles but because of the constantly changing nature of the site and its content, this may not always be possible. If you do spot anything which doesn’t look quite right, then please let us know
Keyboard Short Cuts / Access Keys
Different browsers use different keystrokes to activate access key shortcuts, as shown below:
Browser | Page | Shortcut | |
Windows | Firefox or Chrome | Home | Shift + Alt + 1 |
Skip navigation menu | Shift + Alt + 2 | ||
Internet Explorer or Edge | Home | Alt + 1 | |
Skip navigation menu | Alt + 2 | ||
NOTE: For Internet Explorer, you will need to press Enter after using the shortcut | |||
Safari | Home | Ctrl + Alt + 1 | |
Skip navigation menu | Ctrl + Alt + 2 | ||
MacOS | Safari | Home | Command + Alt + 1 |
Skip navigation menu | Command + Alt + 2 | ||
Firefox or Chrome | Home | Command + Shift + 1 | |
Skip navigation menu | Command + Shift + 2 |
Options in your browser
Most modern browsers all share the most common accessibility tools, here is a list of useful features:
Incremental Search
Incremental search allows you to progressively search a web page for a particular word or phrase on a page. To enable this on your browser, press and hold Ctrl/Command and then tap F. This will open a box to type your search into. As you type, the matches will be highlighted on the page for you.
Spatial Navigation
Hitting tab will jump you to each of the items you can interact with on any page. Holding the SHIFT key and then pressing tab will take you to the previous item.
Caret Navigation (Internet Explorer and Firefox only)
Instead of using a mouse to select text and move around within a webpage, you can use standard navigation keys on your keyboard: Home, End, Page Up, Page Down & the arrow keys. This feature is named after the caret, or cursor, that appears when you edit a document.
To turn this feature on, press the F7 key at the top of your keyboard and choose whether to enable the caret on the tab you are viewing or all your tabs.
Spacebar
Pressing the space bar on a web page will move the page you are viewing down to the next visible part of the page.
Text fonts
Depending on your browser, you can override all fonts on the site to one that is easier for you to read. Options can be found in your browser’s settings/preferences.
Enlarge your view
You can activate the browser zoom via these keyboard shortcuts
Options on your computer
To zoom your entire computer screen
Apple Mac and Windows operating system both contain options to enlarge your view of your screen:
Make your computer read the site aloud
This website has been built with screen readers in mind. Menus, pictures and inputs will have the correct tags and mark up to compliment your chosen screen reader.
We have tested with the following tools:
NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free screen reader for computers running on the Windows operating system. The latest version can be downloaded for FREE here (on this page you may be asked for a voluntary donation, if you do not wish to donate, click “skip donation this time”)
Microsoft Windows Narrator is available in most versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems and reads text on the screen aloud and describes events like error messages so you can use your PC without a display. To find out more and how to enable it on your version, please click here
Control your computer with your voice
Apple Mac and Windows operating systems both provide ways to control your computer with voice recognition:
Third-party voice recognition software is available too.
Languages and translation
We aim to make our web content easy to understand and strive to use ‘plain English’ wherever possible.
We are unable to provide manual translations of our web content but our website can be translated into various browsing languages, including Welsh, using the Google Chrome browser or Google Translate tools. Visit Google Chrome help pages to configure your browser for translation.
Our Loans Coordinator for Wales is a Welsh speaker and will happy to talk to you about the information panels, artwork labels and other materials we can provide in Welsh. You can contact them via southwales@paintingsinhospitals.org.uk.
Documents
We aim to ensure that all documents on the Paintings in Hospitals website are as accessible as possible. All of the documents we provide online are in Microsoft Word and/or PDF formats. Most systems will come with programs to open these files.
You can find out more about how to configure the free Adobe Reader software to obtain greater access to PDF files by visiting the Adobe site.
If you are having problems accessing a particular document, please contact us.
We want everyone to be able to be inspired by and benefit from our work. If you have any suggestions for how we might improve our accessibility, let us know.
About our collection
Our art collection is the only national arts in health collection. Over 2,000 artists are represented, including Bridget Riley, Antony Gormley, Andy Warhol, Anish Kapoor, Maggi Hambling, and many more.
Paintings in Hospitals makes it easy for health and community care services to benefit from our art.