Acessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for Department of Education and Science

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. On Windows, you can press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, you can press Control + an access key.

The home page and all content pages define the following access keys:

Access Key 1 - Home page

Access Key 2 - Skip to main content

Access Key 4 - Search Box

Access Key 0 - Accessibility statement

Standards Compliance

1. This site is Bobby AA approved, complying with all priority 1 and 2 guidelines of the W3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.When the Bobby test is run, it does report the following ?error?. 13.1 Do not use the same link phrase more than once when the links point to different URLs. This is not an error. Bobby?s automatic checker cannot distinguish between dynamic Url?s which have the same link text and resolve to the same resouce but may have a different Url expression.
2. This site is also Section 508 approved, complying with all guidelines of the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines.
3. The entire site validates as HTML 4.01 Transational with the exception of a perceived error.This perceived conflict occurs when defining Url entities but is not an obstacle to vaildation.
4. The site uses structured semantic markup where possible. For example, internal content pages use H1 for all top level headings and list markup for left navigation and internal navigation where possible. Using real list markup is best. Since all the visual presentation is in the CSS declarations, none of it clutters up the page, so both JAWS and Home Page Reader simply read your list for what it is: a list.

Navigation Aids

1. Left navigation is list markup, top level navigation is visable at all times.
2. A breadcrumb link is available at the top each page to assit in navigation.
3. All forms have assoicated labels with form controls.
4. All content pages spawned from lists, have a back to list link.
5. The home page and all internal pages include a search box (access key 4).
6. Advanced search options are also available.

Links

1. Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article).
2.  Whever possible, links are written to make sense out of context. Many browsers (such as JAWS, Home Page Reader, Lynx, and Opera) can extract the list of links on a page and allow the user to browse the list, separately from the page.
3. Link text is never duplicated; two links with the same link text always point to the same address.
4. There are no "javascript:" pseudo-links. All links can be followed in any browser, even if scripting is turned off.
5. There are no links that open new windows without warning.

Images

1. All content images used in the home page and elsewhere include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.

Visual Design

This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout and all presentation has been completely seperated from content with the exception of layout tables.

1. This site makes use of stylesheets that allow for flexible resizing of fonts to meet user requirements. If you find that font sizes are too small simply increase the default font size used in your web browser software (for example, in Internet Explorer font sizes can be changed in the View Menu under 'Text Size'). This feature may not work correctly in all web browsers.

If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.

Accessibility References

1. W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
2. W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
3. W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.
4. U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.

Accessibility software and services

1. Bobby, a free service to analyze web pages for compliance to accessibility guidelines.
2. HTML Validator, a free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards.
3. Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing your web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
4. JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited demo is available.
5. Lynx, a free text-only web browser.

Irish Sites

http://www.nda.ie/. The National Disability Authority. There are numerous links here to Irish sites of interest.

http://www.ahead.ie/.The Association for Higher Education Access and Disability.