Accessibility
Oasis is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. As a charity supporting people affected by domestic abuse, we know that anyone arriving here may be doing so in difficult circumstances, and we want the experience of using our site to be as easy and straightforward as possible.
We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website. With this version, we have endeavoured to meet the AA standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 across as many areas of the site as possible, and we keep an eye on the more recent 2.2 guidelines as we continue to improve.
The WCAG guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. Conformance with these guidelines helps make the web more user-friendly for everyone.
Whilst we strive to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards for accessibility and usability, it is not always possible to do so in every area of the website. We are pleased to say that this version of the site meets the great majority of the AA criteria, and we are continuing to work on the remaining areas.
One area we are still refining is colour contrast. We have made sure that all key information, the things you actually need to read and act on, meets the AA standard for contrast. In a few places, some supplementary or decorative headings do not yet fully meet that standard. No essential information is ever lost as a result, and we are working to bring these remaining elements up to the same level.
Oasis continually seeks 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 accessing our website, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Where possible, use an up-to-date web 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 through the use of plug-ins. For more details, see the Accessibility page for each one:
Options in your browser
Most modern browsers 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. To enable this on your browser, press and hold ALT 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 (Edge 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 and 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.
Space bar
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. Guides here:
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 systems both contain options to enlarge your view of your screen: Windows Mac
Make your computer read the site aloud
This website has been built with screen readers in mind. Menus, pictures and inputs have the correct tags and markup to complement your chosen screen reader.
We have tested with the following tools:
NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free screen reader for computers running the Windows operating system. The latest version can be downloaded for free (on the download page you may be asked for a voluntary donation; if you do not wish to donate, click “skip donation this time”).
WAVE is developed and made available as a free community service by WebAIM. Originally launched in 2001, WAVE has been used to evaluate the accessibility of millions of web pages.
Microsoft Windows Narrator is available in most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system and reads text on the screen aloud, describing 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 see Microsoft’s guide.
JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is one of the world’s most popular screen readers, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. JAWS provides speech and Braille output for the most popular computer applications on your PC. This is paid-for software.
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.
Windows Voice Access
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-voice-access-to-control-your-pc-4dcd23ee-f1b9-4fcf-a5e9-d2275e02e91f
Mac Voice Control
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh40719/mac
Contact us
If you experience any difficulty using our website, or you spot anything which doesn’t look quite right, please get in touch via our contact form, marked for the attention of Juliette, and we will come back to you within 48 hours.
In summary
Oasis is committed to providing you access to our most valuable resources, and a website is never finished.
If you do spot anything which doesn’t look quite right, or have any suggestions for how we might improve our services, then please let us know.