Accessibility statement

LHR Airports is committed to meeting the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and makes every effort to ensure its communications are accessible to people with special needs, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments.

However, if as a person with a disability, you encounter difficulties, please don’t hesitate to contact us and make us aware of the issue.

Standards compliance and validation

We have strived to make this website adhere to priority 1 and 2 guidelines of the W3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The site was built in consultation with AbilityNet, a body of website experts brought together by the Foundation for Communication for the Disabled and the Computability Centre – both leading charities working in the field of assistive technology for disabled people.

All pages on this site use XHTML 1.0 mark-up, validated using the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) validation service.

All pages use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS2) for presentation, validated using the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) validation service.

All pages use structured semantic mark-up where possible.

All pages are checked in accordance with DDA, W3C and Section 508 guidelines and adhere/comply to these guidelines as far as possible.

Navigation and navigation aids

  • Primary site navigation is located at the top of each page.
  • Secondary navigation elements are contained in the left-hand column. This navigation is not site-wide and varies from page to page.
  • Navigation menus are marked up as HTML lists and styled with CSS.
  • Many links have title attributes, which describe the link in greater detail.
  • Links are written so as to make sense out of context.
  • Link text is never duplicated. Two links on the same page with the same text always point to the same address.
  • Some links, mostly to external sites, open a new browser window. There will always be a warning in either the text or the 'title' attribute of the link.
  • When the site is viewed in a text-only browser, the 'skip to content' link becomes visible at the top of each page.
  • Forms have their labels explicitly associated with their controls, aiding users of certain screen readers and speech browsers.

Help with finding content

Every page of the site features a Help link at the top. Our help section exists to help you find key information in the site, and also features tips on how to search the site. Links to our policies, including our privacy statement, our terms and conditions, and this accessibility statement, appear at the bottom of every page.

Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing access keys. Our access keys follow UK government guidelines.

S - Skip navigation

1 - Home

6 - Help and Frequently asked questions

8 - Terms and conditions

The key combination for these access keys depends on your web browser.

  • Internet Explorer (Windows): Alt + access key, followed by Enter.
  • Firefox 1.5 and below, Mozilla, Netscape 6 and above (Windows): Alt + access key.
  • Firefox 2 (Windows): Alt + Shift + access key.
  • Opera (Windows and Macintosh): Shift + Esc + access key.
  • Macintosh browsers (Safari 1.2, Internet Explorer 5.2, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape 6 and above): Ctrl + access key.

The following browsers do not support access keys: Camino (Mac only), Internet Explorer prior to version 4, Netscape prior to version 6.

JavaScript

To enhance user experience, this site utilises a small amount of JavaScript (DOM Scripting). If you have disabled JavaScript, or your browser software does not fully support it, the site remains fully operable.

Non-JavaScript versions are provided for all our site tools.

Images

All functional images used in this site include descriptive ALT tags. Purely decorative graphics include a 'null' ALT attribute.

Layout

This site uses a Cascading Style Sheet for visual layout, validated using the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) validation service.

Frames are used only where necessary to display third-party content.

The stylesheet is written to display pages correctly in most commonly-used browsers. In browsers which do not support stylesheets, the flow of content has been tested to ensure it completely retains its sense.

The site uses relative font sizes. You can resize the text using your browser, or by using the 'A' icons at the top of each page. This will not disrupt the page layout.

Colour

Foreground and background colours on this site have been selected to provide a proper level of contrast for ease of reading.

Where a high-accessibility version of a site tool is available, a link will be found to it within the tool.

Throughout the site, colour is never used as a sole means to convey information.

PDF files

We continually make efforts to minimise the number of files in PDF format on the site. Where they appear, they are accompanied by a link to the Adobe website, where free Adobe Reader software is available or download. This software now includes screen-reading functionality.

Moving images and text

None of our content includes blinking text or images, and nothing on this site will cause your screen to flicker. Animation has been kept to a minimum, and is generally illustrative of content already on the site. Where animation is more than illustrative, transcripts and audio files are provided.

Flash animation will never be used for critical information such as arrivals and departures or security alerts. Interactive maps in Flash will always have static counterparts.

Video and audio

Where core LHR Airports content is relayed via audio and/or video files, these files are accompanied by PDF transcripts.

Optimising your set-up for your needs

AbilityNet's My Computer My Way site offers a guide to making your PC accessible. It offers help with seeing the screen, using your keyboard and mouse, and with language and reading.