Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement

This is the official accessibility statement for HR Toolbox site. Please note all links on this page open in the same browser window.

Standards compliance

  1. All pages on this site are Bobby A approved, complying with all the Bobby guidelines. This is always a judgement call; many accessibility features can be measured, but many can not. We have reviewed all the guidelines and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
  2. All pages on this site is WCAG A approved, complying wih all priority 1 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Again, this is a judgement call; many guidelines are intentionally vague and can not be tested automatically. We have reviewed all the guidelines and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
  3. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H1 tags are used for main titles, H2 tags for subtitles.

Browsers

This site works best in Internet Explorer 6 for accessibility purposes. This is because we have followed the W3C recommendations and used div tags (commonly called layers - but not to be confused with Netscape's old proprietory layer tag) instead of tables for layout. Some browsers such as Netscape and Mozilla still have a problem with scrolling with arrow keys or mouse wheel inside layers.

Navigation aids

  1. There is a skip navigation link in the navigation which allows users to skip straght to the content. It is rendered invisible to not distract from the visula style of the pages but can be accessed by tabbing.
  2. If JavaScript is not enabled then a text version of the navigation will appear instead.
  3. If a user has JavaScript enabled but still wishes to use a text version of the navigation (perhaps a user whose screen reader has problems with JavaScript)there is a link to the text version above the navigation. Again, this link is not visible in a browser because its intended for screen reader users who will hear the link.

Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. On Windows, you can press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, you can press Control + an access key.

The navigation utilises access keys for each Task page. Task 1 uses Access key 1, Task 2 uses Access key 2 and so on.

Tab Index

TabIndex keys have not been used for this site with the exception of the sound pages (any page with an underscore followed by 'sd' in its filename). These contain flash (SWF) files with embedded MP3 audio. A bug in Flash means that once the flash object has focus it won't let it go. Our solution has been to use TabIndex= -1. This allows tabbing to bypass the Flash object. As a result if a user's only method of navigation is keyboard, they will have to follow the link to read the text alternative rather than hear the audio.

The navigation utilises access keys for each Task page. Task 1 uses Access key 1, Task 2 uses Access key 2 and so on.

Links

  1. 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).
  2. Links are written to make sense out of context.

Images

  1. All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.
  2. Complex images include LONGDESC attributes or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.

Visual design

  1. This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.
  2. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
  3. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.

Accessibility references

  1. W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
  2. W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
  3. W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.
  4. U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.

Accessibility software

  1. JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
  2. Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
  3. Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
  4. Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
  5. Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user stylesheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.

Accessibility services

  1. Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines. A full-featured commercial version is also available.
  2. HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
  3. Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
  4. Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what your web pages would look like in Lynx.

Related resources

  1. WebAIM, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving accessibility to online learning materials.
  2. Designing More Usable Web Sites, a large list of additional resources.

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