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IDEAS has made accessibility a priority in the redesign of its website. Our site conforms to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) taking into account current best practice and user feedback from consumers during development. We have focused on a clean, simple interface and universal design principles.
The site content has been grouped into 3 high level categories for quick access to Information, News and Services. These links are styled as tabs and located in the main (horizontal) site navigation at the top of the page. They will take you to an index of resources in each category.
The category or section navigation is located on the left of the content in the visual layout and below the main navigation when read linearly.
Some services, such as the LINCS, Access Aware and other specialised directories are located on a separate server. These are external links with their own navigation.
To simplify the navigation links to the page you are on will not be displayed in the navigation choices. Other accessibility features include an enlarged active area making the links easier to use for people with limited hand function and hidden headers at the start of each navigation block for use by screen readers.
This IDEAS website has been tested across different browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions, as well as a range of assistive technologies. Content is accessible across all technologies, however the visual design may be more limited on older systems.
There is a visible 'skip to content' link at the start of each page that is a handy option for keyboard users. This link jumps over the header and navigation to the level 1 heading at the start of the main content area.
Access and tab keys have not been used on the site. The content flow is optimised for tabbing and research has shown that the potenial for conflict between assigned web access keys and browser software keys makes this approach impractical to implement at present.
The IDEAS website has been built using valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and conforms to Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) priority 1 and 2 checkpoints plus relevant level 3 checkpoints.
Content and presentation have been separated to optimise accessibility and ensure the website is still usable by people who do not have CSS enabled. The site 'look and feel' is maintained by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and has been written according to the CSS 2.1 specifications that allows a user's own style sheet to override the IDEAS styles if preferred.
Properly structured semantic HTML mark-up has been used to assist people with vision impairment and other print disability when accessing the site with audio, speech, braille or text readers.
A site search is located at the top of each web page. This will search the main site only but not the specialised databases found under Directories in the Information section.
Another way to find information is via the Sitemap or Pictorial sitemap. This provides an overview of the website, similar to a Table of Contents or in picture symbols.
A collage of 5 small images is displayed as a background on each web page. The images depict the different types of disability information available from IDEAS and include: