Accessibility

At Vauxhall, we're committed to ensuring our information is accessible to as many people as possible. Which is why this website has been developed to W3C WCAG 1.0 accessibility standards.

W3C WCAG 1.0 guidelines

All visual components (for example images and movies) are summarised by alternative descriptive text. This is especially useful for screen readers.

Tables are only used for organizing and presenting tabular data. For clarity they are marked up with header and body sections, and a descriptive caption.

Every link is designed to make sense if the link text is read in isolation, since screen readers may choose to read only the links on a web page. Problematical phrases like "click here" and "more" are avoided.

All videos may optionally be paused or stopped at any time.

Access keys have been provided which allow the visitor to to skip directly past navigation to the page content, to visit the site map, to return to the home page at any time - or to access all level 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 navigation components within the site. This allows a user without a pointing device to comprehensively traverse the site.

accessibility keys

Pages have been compartmentalised into contextual sections with appropriate headings and sub headings.
 
Navigation elements have been distinctly delineated from the main body text content. This helps ensure that Assistive Technology software can render that page with a structure that aids navigation and comprehension.

This website has a number of interactive areas that require data input from the visitor. Keyboard access is provided to forms by using the tab key and navigation in the same way as all other pages.
 
In addition a consistent tabbing order within forms has been retained, and forms have been divided logically into fieldsets with suitable legends. Every form element (text field, checkbox, dropdown list, etc.) has an associated label. Finally, the forms can be submitted without necessarily having JavaScript turned on (see below).

JavaScript is used extensively throughout the website in both navigation menus and AJAX calls to update dynamic content panes. However apart from a small number of functionally rich components which have text alternatives (like the Flash-based video players), all pages and content items are accessible without requiring the use of JavaScript.

This website is designed to be XHTML 1.0 and CSS2 compliant, with the intention of maximising portability and accessibility across a large number of browsers and devices.

W3C XHTML 1.0 specification

W3C CSS2 specification