Web Site Accessibility Information
The Coleman Institute website has been designed to accommodate persons with disabilities. The site has been written with web code to support specific features and functions of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 (Candidate Recommendation of 30 April 08) and Web Accessibility Initiative ( WAI) established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). For example, this site supports use of screen readers, tabbed browsing (tab order statement), and access keys (access key statement). These features allow users with blindness, limited or low vision, and users who cannot use a mouse to effectively navigate the site and understand its content. The site also supports text size changes (e.g., available under the View menu in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox) to allow users with low vision to uniformly increase text size to suit their specific needs. The site can also be utilized by persons who use voice recognition tools instead of a keyboard or mouse.
Special consideration had been given to Principle 3 of the WCAG: Principle 3: Understandable – Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable. Consistent with Principle 3, the Coleman Institute website has been designed with consistent page layout across the site. It has also been written using clear, straightforward language to promote access for all users to written information within the site.
Tab Order:
Users can also navigate the site using tabbed browsing (i.e., using the TAB key to move from one link to the next). The first tab stop on every page is a "Skip To Content" links which will bypass all of the page navigation and go directly to the top of the page content. If you keep tabbing past that link, you will tab through all of the page navigation before you get to the page content.
The tab order of the page content has not been altered. Each tab will take you to the next link in the page content. SHIFT-TAB will take you to the previous link in the document. This is true also for the pages containing forms, primarily the Cognitive Technology Literature Database Search page.
Access Keys:
To use the relevant access key:
- for Internet Explorer, hold down the ALT key, press the appropriate number, release both then press ENTER;
- for Firefox, hold down SHIFT and ALT and press the appropriate number;
- for Opera, press SHIFT and ESC to enter access key mode, then select from the displayed window.
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| 0 | accessibility statement (this page) |
| 1 | home page |
| 2 | skip to content |
| 3 | site map |
| 4 | not used |
| 5 | contact us |
| 6 | Cognitive Technology Literature Database search |
| 7 | State of the States in Developmental Disabilities website |
| 8 | not used |
| 9 | not used |
In some cases the use of access keys interferes with application software "shortcuts", such as using ALT-f to activate the file menu item in Microsoft Windows applications. In most cases the access key function will override the software shortcut. This interference can often be remedied by activiting the shortcut by pressing ALT, then releasing it, then pressing the desired key ("f" for instance to open the file menu).