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Accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for the home page and directories

Introduction

All members of the Brown community are entitled to equal access to official University information. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (§504) prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities, and require postsecondary institutions to effectively communicate Web content to individuals with disabilities. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 (§508), which addresses the obligations of the federal government to procure and use accessible Web design technology, also provides a clear and simple framework to evaluate accessibility compliance.

The following information describes the accessibility of the Brown home page, Academic Life, Administrative Offices, and A to Z. Much of the wording is adapted, with permission, from the accessibility statement for Dive Into Accessibility.

Access keys

Most Web browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the Web site. On Windows, press Alt + an access key (you may then have to press Enter) to move to the associated place on the Web page; on Macintosh, press control + an access key.

The home page and directories define the following access keys:

  • Access key 1 — Home page
  • Access key 2 — Skip to main content
  • Access key 4 — Search box
  • Access key 9 — Feedback
  • Access key s — Search button

Standards compliance

Brown has a draft policy under development on Section 508 compliance. The new home page and its related new pages were developed to meet the Web accessibility guidelines as defined in the Federal Rehabilitation Act’s Section 508 standards, §1194.22 and §1194.21.

All of the new pages:

  • Separate content from presentation with cascading style sheets, site navigation conventions, and the use of alternate text and captions for images, audio, and video.
  • Validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict.
  • Use structured semantic markup.
  • Allow simple and fast access to Web pages by users of screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technology.
  • Use CSS, rather than tables, for layout.
  • Employ explicit labels (<fieldset>, <label>, etc.) with all forms.
  • Express Unicode characters as character entities.

Navigation aids

All pages have a “skip navigation” link that allows screen readers to bypass the primary site navigation and jump to the main content of each page. The home page and related top-level pages include a search form.

Links

Each link has a title attribute that describes the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article). Links are written to make sense when they are listed in a links list or are otherwise displayed out of context.

Images

All content images used in this site include descriptive alt attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null alt attributes.

Accessibility references

Accessibility software

  • JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
  • Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
  • Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
  • Links, a free text-only web browser that maintains table layouts (for visual users with low bandwidth).
  • Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features. A free downloadable version is available.
  • Thunder, a free screen reader for Windows.

Accessibility services

  • HTML Validator, a free service that checks Web documents in formats, such as HTML and XHTML, for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards.
  • Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer, a tool for viewing web pages without a variety of modern browser features.
  • Lynx Viewer, a free service for viewing what Web pages would look like in Lynx.

Related resources