Accessibility statement for
California-Ballroom.info
If you have any questions or comments about the accessibility of this site, feel free to email me from the contact page
Access keys
Despite all attempts to come up with a definitive set of Access keys to assist you with navigation, it has been impossible to find unique keys that will not interfere with the majority of browsers. Therefore, the guidance of the The Usability and Accessibility Working Group has been taken and Access keys have been removed
Standards compliance
- Most of the pages on this site are Bobby A approved, complying with all priority 1 guidelines of the W3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, a number comply to level 3
- Most of the pages on the site are Section 508 approved, complying with all guidelines of the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines.
- All the pages on the main site validate to XHTML 1.0 transitional.
- The vast majority of this site uses cascading style sheets to separate style and content.
- Pages that do not reach the standards are likely to be found in the forum, guest book and shop. All non-compliant pages are under constant review to ensure that they are made compliant as soon as the technology is available to make them so.
Navigation aids
- Tab keys have been activated
- All pages include a search box
- A site map is generated on the fly for access to all pages
Links
- 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).
- Wherever 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.
- 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.
Images
- All content images used in the home page and all archives include descriptive ALT and TITLE attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.
Visual design
This site and all its archives use cascading style sheets for visual layout.
- Internet Explorer has a limited text resizing feature ("View" menu, "Text Size"), but it only works with relative font sizes. Relative font sizes are used throughout this site.
- If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.
Acronyms and abbreviations
If used at all these are commented with descriptive tags
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 busy developer's guide to accessibility.
- U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
Accessibility software and services
- Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines.
- 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.
- JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited demo is available.
- Lynx, a free text-only web browser.
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.
Accessibility books
- Joe Clark: Building Accessible Websites. Comprehensive but not overwhelming.
- Jim Thatcher and others: Constructing Accessible Web Sites. Less comprehensive than Joe's book, but goes into greater depth in the topics it covers. Gives screenshots of how various screen readers and alternative browsers interpret various tags and markup. Also has an amazing chapter on the current state of legal accessibility requirements.
- Dive Into Accessibility, a free online book on web accessibility techniques. You can read it while you wait for the other two to be delivered.
