Accessibility features of this website

How we try to make access to this website easier

"Accessibility" - what it means

Accessibility, with websites, refers the degree to which a site is usable by a wide range of people - the degree of ease with which various people, including those with visual and mobility constraints, can get to the information a website contains. [1] The Internet in general is accessible to the degree that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with its contents, as well as the degree that they can contribute to the Web. Good web accessibility "...also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging." [2]

NOTE that the World Wide Web Consortium has articulated its own distinct standards for accessibility, and a number of individual federal governments have specified their own as well.

About access keys

Access keys (also called "keyboard shortcuts") are key combinations, set up by the web page designer, which may be used to move the mouse cursor from one page element to another. They can be useful for all of us, as a fast way of navigating a website.

Please note: Links with access keys have a letter underlined. This indicates the access for that link.

Access keys active at this web site

As a general rule, Microsoft Windows Operating Systems employ the Alt + access key combination, while Macintosh Operating Systems employ the Ctrl + access key combination. However, within individual browsers, keypress sequences for activation of access keys do vary considerably. A summary of most-current browsers is given below.

One also needs to understand that some browsers move focus to a link and others will activate that same link. You will simply need to learn the behavior of your browser.

The Access Keys active at this website are easy to locate - they are all underlined in one of three menus - the Main menu at the top of every page, the Site Utility Links menu above the Page Contents on most pages, or the Footer menu at the page bottom.

Browsers & access keys

How one activates an access key varies from browser to browser (the following description applies to the most-current versions of each browser):

• In the Mozilla Firefox browser, press [Alt] + [Shift} + [access key] to shift focus to the target link, which is then automatically activated.
• In the Opera browser, press [Shift] + [Esc] to display a little access key menu. Press a number key listed on the menu to activate the target link.
• In Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, press [Alt] + [access key] to shift focus to the target link, then [Enter] to activate the link.

The Opera browser is unique in its ability to display a menu of the access keys available on a given page. With the other browser you have to know them in advance, so they are detailed above.

Sadly, at the time of this writing none of the major browsers document how they behave relative to access keys. None of their "Help" files mention this feature of current HTML. I cannot account for this.

Skip links

Vision-impaired website visitors are likely to be using some kind of software screen reader. It is convenient for them to be able to skip past certain sections of a web page to immediately access its most important parts. "Skip links" make this possible.

Page top links. The very top of every page contains visible skip links targeting...

• the page utility links (found immediately above the page contents listing),
• the page contents listing ("On this page...),
• the page title, and
• the page search tool

Website text logo

Page identity - for screen readers

To verify the identity of each page in the site to those using screen readers, the site title is placed as the first text element of every page's HTML. (This element is not visible on the screen, however.)

Visible text logo - links to homepage

For all visitors, a click on the visible site text logo ("Tom Cloyd MS MS") takes the visitor to the site home page.

Notes

1. Accessibility. (2007, August 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:30 (Pacific Daylight Time), August 24, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Accessibility&oldid=151611686

2. Introduction to Web Accessibility (2005, September). Retrieved 23:30 (Pacific Daylight Time), August 24, 2007, from http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php