Accessibility
This website complies with priority 1 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines. Pages are built on valid XHTML 1.0 Strict for structure and CSS for presentation, and use structured, semantic markup and accessible Javascript for interface enhancements.
For example, H2 tags are used for titles. In particular, this enables JAWS users to skip to the next post using ALT+INSERT+2.
A modern web browser like Explorer 8, Firefox, Safari or Opera is needed to make the most out of this site, but thanks to the separation of content and presentation it should be accessible to any browsing device, including Internet Explorer, even in its earlier incarnations.
Accesskeys
Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. This is a potentially very useful feature for many users. However, accesskeys often conflict with keyboard shortcuts defined by the browser or operating system. Because of this, this website does not use accesskeys.
Navigation aids
All tables have properly scoped header cells, to allow screen readers to render them intelligently. Where required, tables also have a caption and a summary.
Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article).
Whenever possible, links are written to make sense out of context. Many browsers (such as JAWS, Home Page Reader, Lynx, and Opera) can extract the list of links on a page and allow the user to browse the list, separately from the page. To aid this, link text is never duplicated; two links with the same link text always point to the same address.
There are no javascript: pseudo-links. All links can be followed in any browser, even if scripting is turned off. There are no links that open new windows without warning.
Visual design
This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable. The site works surprisingly well as an AvantGo channel (for PDAs) with no extra work or pre-processing.
Accessibility references
- W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
- W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
- W3 accessibility checklist, a developer’s guide to accessibility.
- U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
Accessibility software
- JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
- Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
- Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
- Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
- Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user style sheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.
Accessibility services
- Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
- HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
- Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
- Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.
Related resources
- WebAIM, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving accessibility to online learning materials.
- Designing More Usable Web Sites, a large list of additional resources.
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