Accessibility of Website

The ADA Game website is designed to be aesthetically pleasing, useful, and most of all accessible to the widest audience possible. To achieve these goals, the website was developed to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG) established by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities as well as beneficial to all users through three priority checkpoints:

• Priority 1 (must satisfy for basic accessibility).
• Priority 2 (should satisfy to remove significant accessibility barriers).
• Priority 3 (may satisfy to improve accessibility).

The ADA Game website has Level "Single-A" Conformance to the WCAG 1.0. This means all WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 checkpoints are satisfied and is represented by displaying this icon: .

The WCAG 1.0 guidelines also define two major themes of accessible web design:

1. Ensuring web content gracefully transforms regardless of constraints, such as work environment, technological barriers, and sensory, physical, or cognitive disability.
2. Making web content understandable and navigable.

To satisfy these themes, the ADA Game website uses a variety of the following methods:

1. Keyboard shortcuts
2. Logical and consistent navigation
3. Alternative text and descriptions for images
4. Cascading style sheet (CSS)
5. Usability with alternative computer technology
6. Clear and simple language

Keyboard shortcuts

The ADA Game website has been programmed to offer keyboard shortcuts for some frequently used links (Jump to Page Content, Top of Page, Jump to Login). In describing the "shortcut keys", the letter key and the corresponding letter within the link name have been listed in bold. For example: l to go to the Login.

Please note there is variable support among browsers and systems for using these shortcuts. Currently, Internet Explorer 4.0 or above but NOT Netscape Navigator allows the user to select the appropriate "attention" key (this also varies but usually "Cmd" for Macintosh machines and "Alt" for Windows machines), then select the following letter:

•   l   for the Jump to Login.
•   j   for Jump to Page Content or Top of Page.
•   y   for the Accessibility Guide.
•   r   for the Register.

However, since technology changes so rapidly, also realize that besides the above technique, there may be other systems which could use different shortcut methods, or perhaps even allow the "shortcut key" to be used by itself (without the need for the "attention" key).

An example of the HTML coding for the shortcut key (ACCESSKEY) of the link to the ADA Game Login using the letter "l" is as follows:
  <a href="http://www.adageme.org/login.php"   title="ADA Game Login (l)"   target="_self"   ACCESSKEY="l" >Login to ADA Game</a>

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Logical and consistent navigation

The ADA Game website provides logical and consistent navigation. The target of all links has been identified, and linked text is brief and meaningful when read out of context. For example, to inform a user about more information, instead of "Click here", the linked text says "View more about the ADA Game". Linked text when read by itself should inform the user of what to expect and is helpful when scanning information. It also assists users whose technology can list all links of a webpage and takes into consideration people who may be using alternative computer access technology ("click" is specific to a mouse).

All navigation links have been made location sensitive; that is, the current page is displayed as text to inform the user of their current location within the structure of the website. However, some links such as "Jump to Page Content" and "End of Page" have been programmed to be "invisible" for aesthetics and may not be visible to some users of graphical browsers. These "hidden" links are designed into the page as they are particularly helpful for people using non-graphical or text browsers and people using alternative computer access technology like screen readers and refreshable Braille displays.

Additionally, the website and its accessibility features have been described on this page ("Accessibility of Website"), which is available through the "Accessibility" link in the footer of every page. Furthermore, navigation mechanisms have been consistently provided along with ways to bypass them, including keyboard shortcuts and consistently located:

• "Jump to Page Content" link as the first line in every webpage to take the user over the navigation and directly to the title/text of the page
• "Top of Page" link for multi-part or long pages, at the end of each page content, and as the very last line of each page to take the user back to the top of the page where the content starts.

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Alternative text and descriptions for graphics (non-text)

The ADA Game website, aside from the text-based navigational structures, has been designed to avoid gratuitous use of graphic elements to assist in faster downloading of the website. When a graphic is used, alternative text (more commonly know as alt-text) has been provided. . This alt-text is a short, literal description of what the image represents and is displayed in non-graphical or text browsers, when users have images "turned off", and by other users who may have difficulty viewing the graphics. For people using graphical browsers, such as Internet Explorer, the alt-text (if it has been provided) will appear when the pointer hovers over the graphic.

Additionally, for complex graphics, more detailed information is offered through a long description (LONGDESC). A description link or d-link is used in conjunction as there is minimal support for LONGDESC,. For people using non-graphical or text browsers and users who have images "turned off" in their browser, the d-link will be displayed as [d] next to the graphic. Otherwise, the d-link may not be visible in graphical browsers as it has been programmed for aesthetics to be "hidden".

An example of the HTML coding for the alternative text and descriptions for the image (IMG) of the ADA Game logo is as follows:
  <IMG src="logo.gif" ALT="Logo for ADA Game" LONGDESC="logodescription.htm" >
  <a href="logodescription.php" title="Image Description of ADA Game Logo" >[d]</a>

To continue with this example and view text for a descriptive link, visit Image Description of ADA Game Logo.

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Cascading style sheet (CSS)

The ADA Game website uses templates and a cascading style sheet (CSS) to achieve a consistent style of presentation across all webpages and to facilitate separating the content from the layout or format. The CSS is applied to each webpage by a reference and is used to specify such characteristics as color, font type, font size, and spacing. If a change is desired, such as the color of the page title, the CSS is altered for that change and as a result, will be applied to all webpages with that feature. Users can choose to use the website CSS, their own customized CSS, or "turn off" CSS altogether. Accordingly, the website has been tested to be usable if the style sheets were "turned off". In addition, the W3C CSS Validator has been used to verify the website CSS meets established specifications; this is represented by displaying this icon: .

Furthermore, the coding of the website has been tested to be valid. Besides the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines specifications for using HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the publishing language of the World Wide Web. The W3C HTML Validation Service has been used to verify the webpages of the ADA Game meet the established W3C HTML 4.01 Specification; this is represented by displaying this icon:.

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Usability with alternative computer technology

The ADA Game website has been created and tested to be usable with alternative computer technology. The website has been tested on workstations utilizing popular screen reader technologies such as Jaws. Furthermore, the website was tested in numerous operating systems (Windows, Macintosh, Linux) running different browsers under various combinations of conditions, such as sounds and/or images "turned on" and "turned off". The tested browsers include text-only browsers, such as Lynx, and various popular graphic browsers such as Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, and Mozilla. Additionally, the website has been designed and tested to be usable without a mouse, on small or low-resolution screens, with only voice or text output, and with alternative keyboards. People with color-blindness have also checked the website to ensure important information is not conveyed with color, and that foreground and background colors provide sufficient contrast.

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Clear and simple language

The ADA Game website has tried to utilize clear and simple language appropriate for its content. Large blocks of information have been divided into more manageable groups using such elements as paragraphs, lists, and headings. Scanning of information has been facilitated by front-loading headings and paragraph text. All forms on the website have associated labels and controls. Furthermore, where necessary, text has been supplemented with graphic elements to facilitate comprehension.

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