Mini Blahs - Accessibility Statement
The information on the internet is an invaluable resource to a lot of people, and so everyone should be able to access the internet and it's information in a way that does not hinder or frustrate them, however they might want to access it. This Accessibility Statement provides a brief description of how Mini Blahs was designed with everyone in mind, and what features the website includes to make it as user-friendly as possible.
As always, if you have any comments, praise or complaints about the Accessibility Statement, or if you have a suggestion for us, then please feel free to email us at:
accessibility@miniblahs.com
Standards Compliance
There are many different regulatory bodies that have certain guidelines when it comes to accessibility standards. Probably the most well known body is the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). The W3C have a number of initiatives and guidelines to aid web designers and developers in making their sites as accessible as possible.
As recommended by the W3C, Mini Blahs uses a CSS-based design and layout. The site uses valid CSS 2.1. Mini Blahs also adheres to the XHTML 1.0 Strict coding standard. This ensures that the Mini Blahs uses the best and most efficient combination of style and presentation code available, which in turn means that people of all abilities, with or without disabilities or impairments, should be able to access Mini Blahs and it's information as easily as possible.
Mini Blahs also takes into account the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These are a number of rules and guidelines that, when followed, help a website maintain it's accessibility for all users. There are three standards of compliance for these guidelines: A, double A (AA) and triple A (AAA). In our opinion, Mini Blahs complies with the WCAG rules to a compliance level of double A (AA).
Navigation and Links
The Mini Blahs pre-launch site is a very simple website. There are four main pages to the site, with additional pages used to provide legal and technical information (such as this Accessibility Statement). The main navigation located at the top left corner of each and every page will allow you to navigate to each of the four main pages of Mini Blahs.
The four main navigation links have each been assigned a Tab Index. These are used by screen readers and text-based browsers to allow the user to skip to each link, without the use of the traditional computer mouse. Repeatedly pressing the "Tab" key on the keyboard will highlight each link in turn.
The additional pages (used to convey legal and technical information) can be accessed via links in the footer of every page. These pages are not regarded as important by a lot of visitors, and so a link within the main navigation is not necessary. However, these pages provide interested users with a wealth of knowledge about the site, and should be accessible from every page. Therefore, they can be accessed using the links provided within the footer of each page.
There is also a site map provided within the footer. The site map provides simple, text-based links to all of the four main Mini Blahs pages, as well as the additional pages. Combined these links form an organised representation of the Mini Blahs website, which can be easily read by all users, and accessed by a multitude of graphical and text-based browsers and screen readers.
Access Keys
Mini Blahs does not make use of Access Keys. Although they can be beneficial to some users, there are as many negative aspects to using them as there are positive. Access Keys are used to specify keyboard shortcuts to specific links, much like you see in many common desktop applications. However, nearly all web browsers, including text-based browsers and screen readers, will have their own shortcuts built into them, and while they're not necessarily the same as each other (or used for the same purpose) they are still widely used by the individual users using the browser or screen reader.
As a result, Mini Blahs does not implement Access Keys for the simple reason that they may interfere with the current shortcut keys used by all popular browsers and assistive technologies. Users can make use of the main navigation Tab Indexes to navigate around the website in the standard way, if no mouse alternative is available. However, direct shortcuts to Mini Blahs pages are not provided through the use of Access Keys.
Images
As with nearly all websites, images are used within Mini Blahs. They are used primarily for aesthetic purposes, and are not used to convey important messages to the user.
They are, however, used to aid the Mini Blahs website in conveying its message. Some images used on the website are used to demonstrate (in graphical format) the processes that a user might undertake while using Mini Blahs (for example, signing up with Mini Blahs).
All images on Mini Blahs, whether they are informational or aesthetic, have alternative text associated with them, to allow any text-based browser or screen reader to be able to "display" the picture to the user, and convey the message of the image effectively.
Visual Design
The overall design of Mini Blahs is simple but effective. Each page of the website contains a lot of information, primarily in text format. Alongside the text information, some images are used to graphically show a particular aspect of the website, and other technologies, such as Flash, are used to display other information.
Where certain Mini Blahs technologies are not available to the user, the website degrades to a text-based description of the content. So for example, if the images cannot be conveyed effectively to the user, a text alternative will be used. The same can be said for any Flash content. If the user cannot see the Flash content on the website, a link is provided to download the Flash browser plug-in, and a description of the Flash content is given.
The colour scheme of the site was designed to give a pleasing look for most users, while not disrupting the browsing experience for visually impaired users who may not necessarily be able to see certain colours. The colours used in the design should provide ample contrast on both colour and black and white browsers and screens, without being strenuous to look at by non-visually impaired users, or full colour screens and browsers.
Code
There are some parts of Mini Blahs that use certain technologies that might not be accessible to all users. For the majority of users, the site will be used in the way that it was intended, with all of the technologies and features of Mini Blahs being made use of. However, there are some parts of the website that the user may be unable to, or chooses not to, access.
Where this might be a possible concern for the users, Mini Blahs has been built to degrade to text-based alternatives (as mentioned in the Visual Design section). The process of building core features of the website so that all users can access them, and building extra functionality on top afterwards, is known as Progressive Enhancement (PE). Mini Blahs was designed and built using PE and so should be perfectly usable for all users.
