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University of Western Ontario’s Inclusive Education Website – Accessibility Statement

This is the official accessibility statement for the Inclusive Education website at the University of Western Ontario. Any questions or comments, about our website accessibility, should be directed to Murray Clark.

Access keys

We have provided access keys to enable visitors to navigate to important areas of each page with greater ease. On Windows systems you can press ALT + an access key + Enter and on a Mac you can press Control + an access key + Enter.

Access keys, for this site, are defined as follows

  • Access key 1 – Home page
  • Access key 2 – Skip navigation link – link to main page content
  • Access key 0 – Accessibility statement

Standards compliance

  1. All pages on this site are compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) XHTML 1.0 Transitional standard, enabling all standard compliant browsers to present the information on this website effectively. We use the W3C Markup Validation Service to verify the XHTML coding on each page.
  2. All Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) rules are run through the W3C’s CSS Validation Service to verify the accuracy of the CSS code used to present the pages on this site. This helps different web browsers and computer technologies to present our site effectively.
  3. Effective colour contrast between the colour of the text and the background colour of the page is verified using the "Access Colour on-line tool for colour contrast" site. This ensures that people who have difficulty distinguishing colours will be able to read the text on the page.
  4. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H1 tags are used to mark the main heading on every page and H2 and H3 tags are used to present the information in second and third level headings as needed. This enables people using screen readers to skim the information on a page by jumping from heading to heading. Paragraphs are labeled as such and lists are used whenever possible to help convey the meaning of the information provided.

Navigation aids

  1. All clickable areas on navigation links can be increased in size in Internet Explorer by going to "View - Text Size" and choosing to view the site in a larger font size. This enables people with fine motor skill challenges to more easily navigate the website using a mouse or laser pointer.
  2. Many navigation links are provided with a "title attribute" which is a technique that enables us to provide a tool tip, with additional information, about what will happen if they choose to activate the link, to anyone using a screen reader or just positioning their mouse over the link.
  3. The backgrounds in the main navigation area have been made clickable. This feature is designed to make it much easier for people to navigate to the main areas of the website since it is easier to click on a larger area.
  4. All form field headings are labeled so that people can click on the field heading and know exactly what information is required to fill in that field. This is designed to enable people who are blind to fill in any forms independently. Forms are available at different times throughout the year.
  5. A "Skip Navigation" link is provided on every page enabling people using screen readers to avoid listening to all the navigation links before the main content on the page is made available to them. This feature reduces the time required for people using screen readers to access the main content on each page bringing it more in-line with the time a sighted person would need to access the same information.

Additional accessibility features

  1. The size of all text on each page can be increased in size (or decreased) allowing all people to set the website up to better meet their individual needs. In Internet Explorer go to "View – Text Size" – and select one of the 5 font sizes available from Smallest to Largest. Enabling this method, of changing the text size on the page, allows the text to be reformatted on the page without the page becoming any wider. With this method people don't have to scroll left and right to read one line of text.
  2. All images conveying information are provided with descriptive alternate text equivalents that provide the same information to visitors who are not able to see the image. This helps people who are blind but also people who are using text-only browsers.
  3. Definitions are provided for all acronyms and abbreviations when first used on a web page. If you hold your mouse over an underlined acronym or abbreviation a tool tip appears to tell you what it means. In addition a screen reader is told whether to say the letters normally or whether to spell them out.
  4. This "Accessibility Statement" is designed to provide people with information about the accessibility features designed into this website so that they are better able to find solutions to any accessibility issues they may have.

Accessibility Statement

Western Education

© 2009 The Centre for Inclusive Education, UWO
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