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Site Accessibility

Accessibility Statement

We are committed to ensuring that this website is accessible to everyone. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact webmaster@dwcon.org as we are continually striving to improve the experience for all of our visitors and appreciate your feedback.

Standards compliance

  1. All pages on this site follow U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines.
  2. All pages on this site follow priorities 1 & 2 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
  3. All pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict.
  4. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H1 tags are used for main titles, H2 and H3 tags for subtitles. For example, on this page, JAWS users can skip to the next section within the accessibility statement by pressing ALT+INSERT+3. Opera users can skip sections by using S and W to cycle forwards and backwards respectively through headings.

Structural Markup

Web pages on www.dwcon.org commonly include 4 different areas:

  1. A header bar that includes the main navigation and a simplifed breadcrumb trail
  2. A side navigation bar
  3. A main content area
  4. A footer

When CSS is not applied to a document (or when using a screen reader) the 4 areas are read in the above order.

Access Keys

This site does not currently use the accesskey attribute.

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.

Unfortunately, access keys often clash with keys set aside for use with other UAs (i.e. assistive technology). For this reason, we have decided to not set default access keys. However, future versions of this site may include an option to allow users to set their own keyboard shortcuts for specific elements through an Access Key Preferences form.

Images

Unless they are purely decorative items, all images used on this web site have suitable alt attributes and content should be usable/accessible with images "off" (disabled).

Links

Links are written to make sense out of context and URLs are permanent whenever possible.

Forms

All form controls are appropriately labeled and form validation routine does not rely on client-side script.

Scripts

This site makes use of non obtrusive client-side scripting to provide access to alternative CSS. However all site content is usable without JavaScript support.

Pop up Windows

This site does not make use of popup windows and will not spawn any new windows without clear warning.

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.
  4. Any information conveyed through the use of color is also available without color (i.e. text based).

How to modify this site to fit your needs

The links to the external sites below explain the many ways you can make the web more accessible to you.

Accessibility references (external links)

Accessibility software

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page.