flowerworks logo [home] (access key 1)

This website has been designed very much with accessibility issues in mind. Every effort has been made to ensure that as many visitors as possible are able to access and use it, regardless of differing abilities or technologies used.

Testing

This website has been tested for compatibility with the following browsers:

Internet Explorer for Windows (v 5.5 & v 6.0); Mozilla Firefox for Windows (v 1.0); Mozilla Firefox for Macintosh (v 1.0); Netscape for Windows (v 7.02); IBM Home Page Reader for Windows (v 3.02); Internet Explorer for Macintosh (v 5.0); and Safari for Macintosh (v 1.0).

Although some browsers may in some cases display pages slightly differently than others, the functionality and usability of the site is the same in all.

It has also been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and we are confident that it meets at least the minimum requirements (Priority 1) as well as the majority of Priority 2 & 3.

Screen readers

This site has been very carefully constructed and tuned to work with IBM Page Reader (v 3.02) and various elements have been added to help the visually impaired user as much as is possible during their visit.

Features include (but are not limited to):

Clear verbal identification of primary, secondary and footer navigation (which can be skipped over); individual navigation menu items verbally explained in detail; verbal notification of page end; all links (navigation or otherwise) verbally separated in a clear manner; address, telephone number and email address verbally and clearly identified as such.

All features have been tested practically.

Using the site without a mouse

Mouseless visitors will find that they can navigate between pages by using the TAB key on their keyboard.

Specific tab indexing has been employed (where necessary) on all pages in order to provide a logical route through the menu links. Menu links can be followed by hitting the ENTER key on the keyboard.

Regular text links in the main body of the page can naturally also be 'tabbed' to and followed using the ENTER key.

Tab indexing has also been employed on forms (where possible) in order to provide logical route through the various entry fields.

In Internet Explorer for Windows (v 5.5 & v 6.0) it is possible to tab to the central scrolling content of each page and (once highlighted by a 'focus box') scroll down (or up) the page by using the arrow keys.

Additionally, 'access keys' have been assigned (on all pages) to important sections of the site. These keys (supported by most modern browsers) provide quick access to important areas, such as:

The accessibility statement (this page); the home page; the news page; the site map page; the frequently asked questions page; the terms and conditions page; and the contact details page.

For more information about 'access keys', please see the next section.

About access keys

Many browsers now support the use of access keys on websites in order to 'jump' to important information quickly. This website has assigned access keys to a number of important pages (specific assignment as recommended by the UK Government).

To access any of these specific pages, visitors with Windows-based browsers (such as later versions of Internet Explorer for Windows) should be able to hit the relevant letter or number (as indicated below) on their keyboard whilst holding down their ALT key (in some cases, this action may have to be followed by the ENTER key). Macintosh users should find that holding down the CONTROL key on their keyboards whilst pressing one of the access keys listed below will produce the same effect.

Forms used on this site

To make accessing the forms present on this site as easy as we can for as many visitors as we can, we have used (wherever possible) tab indexing, field focus and field labels.

Tab indexing on forms allows access to each entry field (as well as the submit button) by the simple use of the TAB key on the keyboard. The presence or use of a mouse is not required.

Field focus highlights the entry fields (feature not available in Internet Explorer) with a contrasting border and background colour as they are tabbed or clicked into.

Field labels are applied to each field name (e.g. 'Please enter your name:') allowing them to be simply clicked on (with a mouse) in order to access the entry field itself.

Scripts and plugins used on this site

The use of client-side scripts in this site (e.g. Javascript) has been kept to an absolute minimum.

With scripting capabilities disabled, the large majority of the site is still fully functional, although some difficulties may be experienced during the ordering process.

There is some limited use of Macromedia Flash on the site, but since this is only to display Wedding, Events and Corporate work image portfolios it does not affect the general operation of the site. If the Flash component is disabled, a flat background image is displayed in its place.

Images used on this site

All images used on this site have either ALT tags or TITLE tags (or sometimes both) employed in order to provide an appropriate description of the image (or function behind it, in the case of images used as links) for those visitors with graphics switched off their browsers or for those visually impaired visitors using screen readers.

The exception to this rule is in the case of images used for layout purposes only, as these offer no useful data to the visitor.

Styles, text and layouts used on this site

The overall layout for pages on this site is created in valid XHTML and uses DIVs rather that tables to control positioning of elements.

External stylesheets are employed to control page / text etc style, colours and positioning. If stylesheets are disabled in the browser, pages are still readable and fully functioning.

All pages are 'in-line', no 'pop-up' windows are ever spawned, either by request (clicking a link) or by random interaction with the site.

For the visually impaired, text sizes on this site can be increased or decreased at will by simply holding down the CTRL key on the keyboard and scrolling backwards or forwards with the wheel on a wheel equipped mouse. For users without such equipment, the same effect can be achieved by using the web browser's own text size adjustment features.

Printing

All pages are printer friendly and should print without issue on standard A4 paper. Even though the design on screen is obviously in a landscape format, visitors have no need to change the orientation of the printing. All pages should print in portrait.

Please note that, in order to facilitate A4 portrait paper printing, print-outs will be predominantly textual. Navigation and background / design images will be removed (although body images and our logo will remain). If you would like to see 'hard copies' of the background / design images on the site, please contact us directly.