Accessibility
The Health Service Executive policy on web accessibility requires that all HSE related sites be at least minimally accessible to our visitors with disabilities.
Our definition of minimal accessibility is based upon the World Wide Web Consortium's guidelines "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines" (WCAG). WCAG defines three levels of checkpoint priority, and our policy requires at least WAI-AA WCAG compliance, which means all priority one and two checkpoints. The site you are currently viewing has WAI-AA compliance.
Video / Flash
The site contains Adobe Flash based video and interactive elements. The video elements are not integral to the navigation of the site. The content of the Flash interactive elements has been provided in alternative static formats. Alternatives have also been provided for any site navigation delivered by these elements
Graphics
HSE.ie provides text equivalents for non-text elements. The ALT attribute is used on all images, and images are only used when necessary.
Long descriptions are used for images that convey information beyond simply raw text; such as an organization chart or a data graph. These can be accessed by clicking the 'd' under the graphic.
Colour
HSE.ie does not rely upon colour.
The website designer's use of colored text or images to convey information is not the only way in which that information is conveyed. People who have difficulty identifying colour will still be able to use the site as other means of identifying heading etc. have also been used.
The web site relies heavily upon stylesheets for visual presentation. However, the pages can still be used without CSS.
Language
HSE.ie uses plain, understandable English.
Tables
HSE.ie ensures that table markup is only used for data tables.
For tables that express tabular information -- content laid out in columns and rows -- XHTML 1.0 Strict's features that associate cell content with column and row headers have been used.
For more on this, see the XHTML 1.0 Strict Specification