The Web Accessibility Initiative run by the World Wide Web Consortium recommends designing websites to ensure maximum accessibility. Further, in the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act makes it illegal for any organisation or service to discriminate against users on the grounds of disability. However, building accessible websites is not just about complying to legislative whims. Accessible design is good design: building a website with accessibility in mind from the outset ensures that any user, regardless of their ability, computer system, or web browser will find a site straightforward to navigate.
This page gives more details about the accessible design of The Pequod website, including the use of access keys.
Accesskeys offer an alternative, keyboard-based way of quickly navigating a website using all the major web browsers.
All websites for the United Kingdom Government should follow a consistent set of keys and, as it seems sensible to make as many websites as possible follow a standard code, the access keys on this website broadly follow these guidelines. The following Accesskeys can be used at any point to take you to the relevant page:
To use access keys on Internet Explorer 4, press and hold the ALT key (or CTRL for Macintosh users), then press the relevant letter or number.
To use access keys on Internet Explorer 5 and above, press and hold the ALT key (or CTRL for Macintosh users), then press the relevant letter or number. Finally, press ENTER.
To use access keys on Firefox, press and hold the ALT and SHIFT key, then press the relevant letter or number.
To use access keys on Opera, press SHIFT and ESC, then press the relevant letter or number.
This website conforms with all of the standards up to Level A, and meets many of the requirements for Level AA. In addition to these guidelines, the website has been set-up with the following criteria to help access generally:
One problem faced when attempting to design accessible web pages is that screen readers and other accessibility tools all work in different ways. Although I have tried to test the site using a range of software and practices, if you experience difficulty with the site, please provide details using the Your Comments form. I can then attempt to sort out the problem and make the site more accessible to future users.
To add your thoughts about this page, use the comment form below.
This page was published on June 15, 2008 | Keywords: accessibility, accesskeys, usability, valid HTML
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