What is an accessible website?

An accessible website is one that accommodates a full range of users.

Accessible websites prioritise clear content, structure and ease of navigation over superfluous aspects of design, however, they need not be visually unattractive, nor are they prevented from using the latest web technologies, provided that all information is still accessible to users.

We aim to achieve and maintain good levels of accessibility but recognise that it is very hard for a large website to maintain such compliance. Through further development of our web services, we will improve our compliance and aim to meet as many WAI Level AA guidelines as are achievable.

Access keys

Access keys are keyboard shortcuts which allow the user to navigate around a website or a piece of computer software without having to use a mouse or other pointing device.

You can use the following access keys throughout our website.

To use these shortcut keys hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Ctrl key (Apple) and then one of the keys in the table below. In some browsers, you may have to press Enter to confirm your choice.

  • Access key 0 is provided for List of Access Keys.
  • Access key 1 is provided for Home.
  • Access key 3 is provided for Search.
  • Access key 9 is provided for Contact Us.
  • Access key [ is provided for the beginning of the main content. This is known as a Skip Link.
  • Access key / is provided for re-directing to the New Zealand Government website: www.govt.nz.

Change text size and colours

You can use your browser settings to change the text size and colours for all the websites that you visit, something you may want to do if you find the text too small to read, or if the contrast between text colours and the background colours is not great enough.

The technique for doing this is slightly different depending on the browser that you use. For advice on how to make those changes in the browser, you're using, we recommend visiting the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's page on this topic, where the up-to-date information can be found.