Celebrate Down Syndrome: Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement

Celebrate Down Syndrome, Inc., strives to make our website as accessible as possible to persons with various challenges and disabilities. This accessibility statement describes the measures we have taken as well as how you can use these tools to improve your experience on our website.

Access Keys

Many browsers allow users to access specific links by typing keys defined on the website. While browsers require different keystroke combinations, in general, you can press ALT + followed by the access key on Windows, and on Macintosh, press Control + followed by the access key.

The following access keys are defined on all pages of this site:

• Access key 1 - Home page
• Access key 2 - Skip over navigation links to main content
• Access key 3 - Site map
• Access key 6 - Accessibility statement
• Access key 9 - Contact information
• Access key 0 - Access key list

Other Navigation Aids

1. Each page is coded with special links that will take users directly to this website’s navigation menu, to skip the navigation menu to go directly to the page content, and to go to the access key list. These links are invisible in most visual web browsers but will be read aloud in screen readers to assist persons with impaired vision.
2. All pages of this website have links coded in the metadata. While this may sound confusing, what it does is provide these links at the top of the page to site visitors using screen readers and text-only browsers. There are links to the home page, the site map, and the accessibility statement in the metadata of each page. Opera users can select the View menu, Toolbars, Navigation Bar.
3. Each page is marked-up semantically; for example, h1 tags are for the main title, h2 tags are for the article title,h3 tags are for section titles, and so on. Screen readers can use this to their benefit. JAWS users can skip to the next section in a page with section titles by pressing ALT + INSERT + 3.

Font Sizing

Fonts on this website are relatively sized, meaning that they may be enlarged if necessary for readability. Internet Explorer users can find this feature by selecting the View menu, Text Size. Safari users can select the View menu, Make Text Bigger. Firefox and Opera allow you to zoom the entire web page by selecting the View menu, Zoom.

Images

Images provide alternate text descriptions of the images for non-visual readers. Images used solely for decoration use null alternate descriptions.

Forms

Forms on this website are designed using appropriate label tags so that screen readers will associate the proper label with the proper form field.

Standards Compliance

1. All pages on this website validate as XHTML 1.0. The World Wide Web Consortium specifies standards that allow websites to be accessible to a wide audience regardless of browsers or assistive technologies used. The W3C Validator, maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium, determines validity of a site page.
2. This website uses cascading style sheets (CSS) for layout, which have been validated by the CSS Validator, also maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium.
3. All pages on this website are believed to conform to WCAG 1.0 A standards. The World Wide Web Consortium has established guidelines to assist web designers to create pages that are accessible to persons with disabilities. However, pages cannot be automatically validated and must be manually checked by the site designer.
4. All pages on this website are believed to be Section 508 approved. Section 508 Guidelines are established by the U.S. federal government as requirements for federal agencies’ websites. While this is not a federal agency, Section 508 provides another benchmark for testing. However, pages cannot be automatically validated and must be manually checked by the site designer.

Additional Reading

If you wish to continue reading about website accessibility, take a look at the following resources, which provide a great depth of information:

• Web Accessibility Initiative—a group that develops strategies, guidelines, and resources for web accessibility
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0—guidelines for making websites accessible to persons with disabilities or special technologies
• Section 508—requirements for U.S. federal agency websites