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Home > Accessibility
SI Site Accessibility
The School of Information (SI) has tried to make this site as accessible as possible. If you have any comments or questions about the accessibility of our site, please contact us at si.webmaster@umich.edu.
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.
This site uses the following access keys:
- 0 - links to this accessibility statement
- 1 - links to the home page
- 2 - links to the search page
- 3 - skips to the site's global navigation
- 4 - skips to section specific navigation
- 5 - skips to page content
- 6 - links to the site map
- 9 - links to a page where you can fill out a form to contact SI
Standards Compliance
All public pages on the site meet the following standards:
Exceptions
W3 Web Content Accessibility Guideline 9.3 → states: "For scripts, specify logical event handlers rather than device-dependent event handlers."
The primary use of client-side scripts on this site is within the JavaScript drop down menus, which provide redundant local navigation links that drop-down from the global navigation. Because making these menus dependent on logical rather than device-dependent (in this case, mouse-dependent) events would add these links to the global navigation tabbing sequence and would make use of those global navigation elements cumbersome for users who rely on tabbing, and because these drop-down menus simply repeat the links that are already available in the local navigation (i.e., the left-column menus), we believe all users gain by having these menus function merely as a device-dependent extra. In short, assistive-technology users lose nothing in their local navigation experience and gain a much more efficient global navigation experience.
W3 Web Content Accessibility Guideline 3.7 → states: "Mark up quotations. Do not use quotation markup for formatting effects such as indentation. [Priority 2]
For example, in HTML, use the Q and BLOCKQUOTE elements to markup short and longer quotations, respectively." This site complies with the first part of the guideline. However, we found that the Q and BLOCKQUOTE tags were not handled
consistently by screen readers. Instead we use the HTML special character " which consistently alerts screen readers to quoted material within one of the site's pages.
Navigation Aids
In addition to a search box, each page also contains skiplinks (see Access Keys section above for specific numbers) which allow users to jump to specific areas of the site.
From the beginning of each page, users can jump directly to the global navigation, the section navigation or page content. These options are hidden from visual browsers, but available to screen readers and text-only browsers.
Links
Whenever possible, links are written to make sense out of context. If necessary, links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail than given in the link text.
With the exception of the links in the drop-down menus in the global navigation (and all of these links are repeated in the standard menus for each section), all links can be followed in any browser, even if JavaScript is turned off.
There are no links that open new windows without warning. Links that will take the user off the SI site are marked with an →.
Visual Design
The site uses a combination of cascading style sheets (CSS) and HTML tables for visual layout. Ideally, CSS alone should be used for layout, but browser support is still inconsistent for this technique.
All text on the site is set using relative sizes so that it can be increased or decreased using browser controls. All site pages can be resized. All images include descriptive ALT attributes (purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes).
The information on this page is based on the Accessibility Statement of diveintomark.org →.
Last updated: Aug 05, 2005
Home > Accessibility
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