digital media access group
...excellent accessibility research and consultancy
This is a archived version of the DMAG website, but the information remains for reference. Please visit the new website for updated information.
Accessibility Statement
Note that we're currently doing research into the effectiveness of pages such as this on people's ability to make changes to Web sites to improve accessiblity. When we finish, we expect this page will change a fair amount!
Features to enhance the site's accessibility
These features have been provided to help make our site as accessible as possible to as many people as possible
- All text should be resizable using your browser's text-resize option
- If you use your own style sheet, it can be applied to allow changes in the site's appearance without affecting the readability or accessibility of the information
- HTML heading elements have been used to represent page structure, supporting assistive technologies that allow page navigation from heading to heading
- All hyperlinks should make sense when read out of context, and hyperlinks change colour when the destination page has been visited
- All images have been given appropriate alternative text
- A navigation bar linking to the main sections of the site is provided at the top and bottom of each page
- A 'breadcrumb trail' navigation feature is provided to help navigation
- The site has been tested to ensure that it is accessible in a wide range of browsers
Keyboard access
- On each page a 'skip to main content' link allows direct access past the navigation bars to the page's main content, which should make navigation easier if you are using the keyboard or other input device to browse.
- However, keyboard shortcuts are no longer provided for site pages, given the likely problems they may cause though conflicting with keyboard shortcuts used for other programs (e.g. browsers, screen readers). If this causes you a problem, please let us know!
- Using Access Keys - is it worth it? Wats.ca An article from Canadian web accessibility group Wats.ca on the problems of HTML access keys as keyboard shortcuts.
- We know that keyboard accessiblity of web sites needs to be improved, so we're watching with interest developments in providing user-defined access keys - where the web site allows you to specify your own keyboard shortcuts. This way, we wouldn't be second-guessing which shortcuts you would like - you can set your own. There are a few trial solutions in use, for example Gez Lemon's User Defined Access Keys...we're monitoring reaction to these.
Visual Design
- Cascading Style Sheets have been used to control the presentation of pages and properly structured markup has been used for content, for a full explanation of the accessibility benefits of this see "Why using CSS improves accessibility"
- If stylesheets are not supported or are turned off, information on the site can still be accessed and read
- Relative font sizes are used, which allows users to resize text as needed
Standards Compliance
This is the technical bit...you can ignore it unless you're a web developer or lawyer!
- All HTML should validate as HTML 4.01 Strict using the W3C markup validator
- All stylesheets should validate using W3C CSS validator
- All pages should comply with our interpretation of all relevant priority 1,2 and 3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, with the following exceptions:
- Regarding Checkpoint 11.1, we consider HTML 4.01 Strict to be acceptable as a 'latest version' of a W3C technology
- Regarding Checkpoint 14.2, the nature of our site is that it's mainly textual content, and thus we don't have many instances of graphical content to supplement our text. We will, though, make sure that wherever we can support our textual content with graphical content if it helps understanding.
Contact Information
We've done our best to ensure this site is as accessible as possible, but it can happen that accessibility
problems do arise despite our best efforts. If you do find any accessibility barriers that affect or prevent your
use and enjoyment of the site, please let us know and we'll do our best to address the problem as soon as possible.
email: dmag@computing.dundee.ac.uk
tel: +44 (0) 1382 385050
fax: +44 (0) 1382 385509
write to:
Digital Media Access Group
University of Dundee
Dundee
Scotland
DD1 4HN