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Accessibility

Last Updated 11 December 2011

This website has been designed to be easy to use and to be accessible to as many people as possible. This page describes some of the features that I have used in to achieve this. This page contains the following sections:

I support and promote accessible and usable web design. I do believe it is possible and practical to deliver an appealing website that is widely accessible. Some non mainstream audiences will need specific client-side access technologies such as screenreaders or magnifiers. I intend my website to provide well structured content and appropriate metadata so that such technologies can render my site well. I appreciate any comments on accessibility and usability aspects of my website.

Access keys

Some browsers support jumping to certain pages by pressing key combinations. All pages on this site define the following access keys:

Different browsers use different key combinations to activate access keys, so please look in your browser's help file for the right combination. Note that some older browsers do not support access keys at all.

I have done my best to make this site as easy to navigate as possible, including for use in text-only browsers or via screen readers:

Images

Most images on this site have an alternative text (ALT) attribute that describes the contents or function of the image in a meaningful way. This description will be displayed when images are turned off or in a text-only browser. Certain browsers display the alternative text as a "tool tip" when moving the mouse over the image.

CAPTCHAs

Unfortunately, spammers abuse online forms for their nefarious purposes, which makes it necessary for website owners to protect their forms with several barriers against these people. One of the protection tools that is used on this website are CAPTCHAs, Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The standard CAPTCHAs use an image with distorted text that the user has to type. Because this is obviously not accessible to blind and partially sighted people, an audio alternative is available. Blind and partially sighted people can click on the "Audio Version" link. The site will then read out some numbers or other text instead.

Document formats

Most of the content on this site is in xhtml and designed to be accessible. Some documents are available in both xhtml and another format. A few documents are not available in xhtml. I will indicate the document type and size wherever I provide a download link. Some of the document formats I use are:

Visual Design

This site uses style sheets for layout. All the content remains readable and the structure remains logical even when style sheets are not used by your browser or when used through a screen reader. Users can use the zoom function of the browser, although of course this might mean that text and links wrap around.

Use of Open Standards

All pages on this site validate as XHTML. The site also use cascading style sheets, level 2, for visual layout. The style sheets are also compliant and validated. By offering well-structured and validated content, the information on this page will render correctly in any compliant browser and can be processed well by access technology such as screen readers. It also enables search engines to analyse these pages correctly and index them accordingly.