Website accessibility

We are committed to ensuring that this website is accessible to everyone regardless of disability, age or gender. If you have any problems, questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please contact the Webmaster, as we are continually striving to improve the experience for all of our visitors.

Standards compliance

  1. All pages on this site are compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.
  2. All pages on this site follows priorities 1 & 2 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
  3. All pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
  4. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup.

Structural markup

Web pages on EMIS-Online.com may include 5 different areas:

  1. A header bar including the main navigation
  2. A main content area
  3. A "side bar" that includes a quote for the page
  4. A "side bar" that includes additional navigation and information for the page
  5. A footer bar including links to the help sections

When CSS (Cascading Styles Sheet) are not applied to a document (or when using a screen reader), the 4 areas are read in the above order. You can skip to the main content section by accessing the "Skip navigation menu" link at the very top of the page.

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.

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 enable Access Keys for this websites.

Images

  1. Unless they are purely decorative items, all images used on this web site have suitable alt attributes.
  2. Content should be usable and accessible with images "off" (disabled).
  3. Links in the main navigation bar on this site are accessible to non-visual browsers.

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.
  2. All external links on this site open in a new window

Forms

  1. All form controls are appropriately and explicitly labeled.
  2. We provide an email address as an alternative form of access for many online forms.
  3. Form validation routine does not rely on client-side script.

Scripts

  1. We are using non obtrusive client-side scripts.
  2. Content of this web site is usable without JavaScript support.

Pop up windows

  1. In visual browsers, unless Javascript is disabled, all links to external resources will open in a new window. The title attribute of these links says "(opens in new window)".
  2. Browsers with Popup Blockers should be able to access these external documents.

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. Royal National Institute for the Blind Web Access Centre, web accessibility, access technologies, who it affects and myths surrounding accessibility.

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.

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.