Website Features and Accessibility

We are committed to making our website equally accessible for all users, including those with disabilities. If you would like further information about our accessibility standards or have problems or suggestions with regard to the accessibility of this website, please contact us.

Who benefits from accessibility?

While the accessibility features of our website benefit visitors who may be blind, mobility-impaired, or using assistive technologies to navigate the Internet, they are also designed to make the experience of our site more pleasurable—and its use more intuitive—for a range of other users:

Many of the measures we have taken to make our website accessible and compatible with assistive technologies will not be apparent to the average visitor, but even for visitors who use the site in the conventional way, the consideration given to accessibility has serendipitous consequences. Our pages load quickly. They are more readily indexed by search engines. And our content is organized into easily scanned, bite-sized chunks. All of which makes it more likely you’ll find the particular information you’re looking for more easily.

Access Keys

Many browsers allow users to navigate a website by typing special key-combinations. We have taken advantage of this feature and have defined the following keys for your convenience. If you are using Windows, press Alt + the number indicated. On a Macintosh, press Control + the number indicated.

Elasticity

Is our font size too small for your comfort? Contemporary browsers all have some means for re-scaling text, and our website is designed to take advantage of this feature. Depending on your browser, “text size” or “zooming” features are typically available in one of the browser’s menus or on the application toolbar. Even our graphics will rescale in proportion with the text size you choose in your browser’s settings.

Color Contrast

The website is offered in a format with dark text on a light background for those visitors who prefer this color combination. To toggle between the color schemes, simply click on the red target symbol which is at the bottom of each page of the site.

Links, Images, and Abbreviations

When the cursor is allowed to rest over certain links or images on our website, a “tooltip” may appear. This brief text generally provides further information about the link or image, and while intended for use by certain assistive technologies, many common browsers will display the text, as well.

Similarly, acronyms and abbreviations in any text on this site have a dotted underline the first time they appear on a page. Standards compliant browsers will display an explanation of the acronym or abbreviation as a “tooltip” provided the cursor is allowed to rest over the acronym or abbreviation.

JavaScript

JavaScript enables us to provide a few, small enhancements to the experience and usability of our site, but we respect that many of our visitors prefer not to use this technology. The website is fully navigable with JavaScript disabled in your browser’s preferences.

Compliance and Technical Details

This website is designed to comply with the U.S. Federal Government 1998 Amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as well as to Conformance Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines recommended by the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative. In some measure these standards are subjective, but we have reviewed the guidelines and believe that the templates of our website are in compliance. Again, we welcome you to contact us with any comments or suggestions.

The site is standards-based and composed in semantic, valid XHTML 1.0 Strict with valid Cascading Style Sheets, which may be verified on any page. We welcome you to have a look at our colophon for further technical details about the design, markup, and information architecture of the site.