Accessibility Statement and Features
ISERP is committed to making our website equally accessible for all users, including those with disabilities. If you would like further information about our accessibility standards or have problems or suggestions with regard to the accessibility of this website, please contact us.
Who benefits from accessibility?
While the accessibility features of the ISERP website certainly benefit visitors who may be blind, mobility-impaired, or using assistive technologies to navigate the Internet, they are also designed to make the experience of our site more pleasurable—and its use more intuitive—for a range of other users:
- Users with normal, failing vision
- Users with dyslexia
- Users unable to distinguish between certain colors
- Users who navigate with a keyboard or verbal input rather than with a mouse
- Users without a broadband connection to the Internet
- Users of text browsers (or older graphical browsers)
- Users of laptops and mobile, handheld devices
- Users with images, style sheets, and/or JavaScript deactivated in their browser’s preferences
Many of the measures we have taken to make the ISERP website accessible and compatible with assistive technologies will not be apparent to the average visitor, but even for visitors who use the site in the conventional way, the consideration given to accessibility has serendipitous consequences. Our pages load quickly. They are more readily indexed by search engines. And our content is organized into easily scanned, bite-sized chunks. All of which makes it more likely you'll find the particular information you're looking for more quickly.
Access Keys
Many browsers allow users to navigate a website by typing special key-combinations. ISERP has taken advantage of this feature and defined the following keys. If you are using Windows, press Alt + the number indicated. On a Macintosh, press Control + the number indicated.
- Access key 1 — Home
- Access key 2 — Jump to the main content
- Access key 4 — Search the ISERP website
- Access key 5 — About ISERP
- Access key 9 — Contact
- Access key 0 — Accessibility Features
Alternate Formats
Is our font size too small for comfort? ISERP offers its website in an enlarged format. Perhaps a bit more contrast would help, or maybe the site is just too wide for your monitor or preferred screen resolution? Try using either the high-contrast format or single-column format. Just toggle among the alternate formats using the magnifying glass icons that appear on each page of the site.
The alternate formats of the ISERP website are not abridged versions of the site. They offer the very same content seen through a different filter, called a style sheet. If you choose to view the site in an alternate format, your preference will be saved in a cookie for the next time you visit the site (provided cookies are enabled in your browser). The toggles for the alternate formats appear on every page, so switching back to the standard format is no problem.
Really Simple Syndication
Subscribing to an RSS news feed is the easiest and most up-to-date way to keep on top of what's going on at ISERP. We offer separate feeds for our calendar of events and our newsletter, as well as a comprehensive feed for those who want to keep on top of it all. Individual feeds are also available for each of our workshops so that devotees can keep track of changes to the schedule, as well as when workshop papers become available for download.
Handheld Devices
ISERP offers its website in a handheld format designed specifically for mobile phones and PDAs. If the browser on your handheld device supports standards, most likely the site will display in this format automatically. Nevertheless, we still recommend switching manually to the handheld format to take advantage of provisions we've made to further lower the bandwidth of our pages for handheld devices.
Links, Images, and Abbreviations
When the cursor is allowed to rest over certain links or images on the ISERP website, a "tooltip" may appear. This brief text generally provides further information about the link or image, and while intended for use by certain assistive technologies, many common browsers will display the text, as well.
Similarly, acronyms and abbreviations in any text on the ISERP site have a dotted underline the first time they appear on a page. Standards compliant browsers will display an explanation of the acronym or abbreviation as a "tooltip" provided the cursor is allowed to rest over the acronym or abbreviation.
JavaScript
JavaScript enables us to provide a few, small enhancements to the experience and usability of our site, but we respect that many of our visitors prefer not to use this technology. The ISERP website is fully navigable with JavaScript disabled in your browser's preferences.
Compliance and Technical Details
The ISERP website is designed to comply with the U.S. Federal Government 1998 Amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as well as to Conformance Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines recommended by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. In some measure these standards are subjective, but we have reviewed the guidelines and believe that the templates of our website are in compliance. Again, we welcome you to contact us with any comments or suggestions.
The site is standards-based and composed in semantic, valid XHTML 1.0 Strict with valid Cascading Style Sheets, which may be verified on any page. We welcome you to have a look at our colophon for further technical details about the design, markup, and information architecture of the site.
