Accessibility Standards and Efforts

After far too much debate, and effort, we have finally concluded that the economic costs versus the benefits of attempting true "cross-browser" accessibility for "all" browsers cannot be justified. Effectively we support Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (and maybe future releases?) on Windows based computers and Firefox 2.x and 3 (and presumably up) on either Windows or Apple computers. But even those have some caveats so read on. If you wish to examine some of the issues faced in providing full accessibility in other browsers, see our "try 1" version of this accessibility page.

Be aware that this Accessibility statement is written fairly generically to apply across all International Studies and Programs (ISP) websites and for any other websites that are put within that standardized framework. That framework is being developed and deployed as rapidly as possible though finalization for some 40+ sites is not anticipated until sometime in 2011. The main benefits of the framework are twofold, user benefits and maintenance benefits. As user benefits you will get some consistent features across ISP (and related) websites plus see new features instantly across all websites within the framework. From the maintenance standpoint the web development team won't have to keep track of many structurally (from a code setup perspective) different site formats and we can easily put new features out once so that they will take effect simultaneously on all sites.

In order to better serve those who use this site, the following steps have been taken to ensure this site is accessible to everyone. Only the fundamental, not all, accessibility features are on by default. In general, ISP sites use your selected text size for display when you are in "wide" mode (more below). Most sites will default to wide mode but, for design reasons, some sites, such as the main ISP site, default to narrow mode. You can reset the mode and have your preference remembered if you allow a cookie on your computer. You can set the width for all pages as wide as your screen, or more, and most pages can also display in quite narrow confines. Also everything that works by JavaScript also works by other means with little difference in user interaction (there may be slight differences in screen display and refresh)¹. In general, images are not necessary for the full benefit of the site (though photo galleries do lose something in the translation to text). There is no place where color comprehension is of required significance.

All of the MSU Accessibility Section I: Required Checkpoints and most of the Section II: Recommended Checkpoints are met by the default settings. All those checkpoints are met when the additional interactive accessibility features are turned on by using ALT-I. How the Access Keys, AKA ALT-keys, work is browser specific as described below.

But first, a couple of conventions used in this page. All keyboard key names are CAPITALIZED and emphasized on this page. Keyboard key combinations are hyphenated thus ALT-A means "hold" (by whatever means) the ALT key down while pressing the A key. A combination may include more than two keys. A sequence of keys is separated by commas (","), e.g., ALT-M, TAB means the ALT-M combination followed by TAB. A capitalized character key, such as A, can be effected with it's unshifted equivalent, i.e., "a". And key names are standardized and may not reflect what your keyboard shows or says: CONTROL = CTRL = CTL, ENTER = RETURN, CMD = COMMAND = [loop-cornered-square]. A keyboard key may have more than one key name, e.g., key "2" is the unshifted version of the same key as "@" which is effected with the addition of the SHIFT key.

And a word about tab stops, known as tabindexes in HTML parlance. Windows Firefox and Internet Explorer have a "natural" tab sequence that moves the user through clickable links and form fields in the sequence in which they appear in the physical document. Unfortunately once you code in one tabindex you practically must put them all in since valid landing places without tabindexes always follow those with. Therefore our pages or forms are completely created and laid out so that "natural" tab order works - if, of course, each form developer adheres to the rules. If you find a form that doesn't follow the rules, let us know at webdev@isp.msu.edu.

Cookies and Settings Defaults

A cookie is set up when you click the "remember" (elephant) icon (see below for more information). This cookie saves your current accessibility settings. To restore settings to the default click: Restore Default Settings. If your browser settings prohibit cookies you will always get the default page settings regardless though you can apply settings you want for each page you display.

Access Keys

Some browsers support web page defined accesskeys. Often these keys enable jumping to specific links or locations by typing keys defined within the page. At the top of every page and (presumably) visible to "screen reader" browsers but not regular CSS browsers is a list of our standard keys. (TAB key access to the list is off, in most browsers, by default---otherwise about a dozen TAB key presses will be needed to activate the first visible landing spot on the screen.) If you are using a reader and it does not "read" this list please let us know---and COMPLAIN to your browser author---so we, and/or they can adjust things. (Unfortunately some "reader" authors have or are operating under the mistaken notion that they should "show" only what is visible to sighted persons thus making "the experience" the same for all, but which, of course, makes it impossible to create a single page for all users that is equally accessible to all and starts an endless spiral of ever more insane "fixes.")

Please note that specific access keys listed below will only be on pages or sites where they are relevant. E.g., if a site does not use Section menus the ALT-S access key is not relevant and will not be present.

I = Turn on (or back to default) all Interactive Accessibility features
0 (zero) = Accessibility statement (this page)
1 (one) = Site Home page
2 = Skip to main content
3 = Site Map
4 = Search box
5 = About Center for Gender in Global Context
6 = Contact Us
7 = Main Menu
8 = Site-Section Manu, if any
9 = Footer Menu
B = Turn on (or off) content area Bolding of Links (and focus/active link highlighting)

ALT-I Toggles on or off all the non-default Interactive Accessibility features on this site. These features stay on (or off) across pages as long as you have an active session going. The features include bolded links, page width using nearly the full browser width (i.e., liquid layout), disabling JavaScript that may not work reliably for keyboard only use, distinguishing between visited an non-visited links, and making the "screen reader" shortcut keys accessible by the tab key (the default for browsers that comply with the W3C standards is to not have tab stops on these shortcut key links).

Accessibility/Utility Icon Bar

Also the web page can be narrowed (or rewidened) by clicking the narrow or widen icon in the accessibility/utility icon bar. The default for most sites is wide with your browser set type size but in some circumstances you might wish to use the narrow, smaller type, option in order to do, for example, Opera or Internet Explorer 7 bitmap enlargements which enlarge text and graphics on a pixel by pixel basis.

You may also want to use the printer icon on the accessibility/utility icon bar to get to a printer friendly version of the content of the page without all the boilerplate page structure elements. All access keys that can actually do something are still available in a printer friendly version of a page, however they may cause redisplay of the standard version of the page.

Page content link bolding, underline, etc., are either on or off by default depending on designer aesthetic considerations. In some sites, link text is distinguished from regular text by being in different color characters than the standard page text. In other sites the link text distinction is made by underlining and/or bolding---perhaps except when the mouse pointer is hovered over the link. For sites where the default for links is not bold and underlined you may turn those on (or back off) by clicking the link bolding icon (the half plain, half bolded chain links icon on the accessibility/utility icon bar). With bolding and underline set on, the only hover indicator of being over a link is that the mouse pointer changs to a hand. Menu and image links are not affected by link bolding.

If your browser is set to allow cookies you may click the elephant icon to save your current settings, such as wide or narrow mode, so that the next time you return to the website your settings will be automatically restored.

Browser Instructions

In the following paragraphs are browser specific instructions. They may not be exactly correct for older versions of browsers or newer versions of browsers than those we tested with. We strongly suggest, to avoid confusion, you only study the one applicable to you for your current browser and that you play with it a bit in your browser to understand what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately we also must suggest that, if you cannot use the mouse point-and-click model (which all below browsers support very well) and you need the accessibility features, that you choose only one of the recommended browsers below or an accessibility browser that has solid, built-in mechanisms to appropriately handle most web pages.

Windows Internet Explorer: RECOMMENDED You can press ALT plus an access key then the ENTER key if an action, such as following a link to a new page or to a menu within the page, is to be executed. To get to the search box is simply ALT-4. Other examples are, ALT-0 (zero), ENTER, gets you to this page while ALT-M, ENTER will get you to the first Main Menu choice (ENTER would then follow that menu choice link and take you to the page or another TAB would land you on the next Main Menu choice, etc.). For more on Windows Internet Explorer see ¹.

Windows Firefox 2.x and 3: RECOMMENDED You can press SHIFT-ALT plus an access key and that will immediately execute any appropriate action (such as following a link) or land you in the search field (SHIFT-ALT-4) or land you on the first position in a menu. Unfortunately when you ALT-key to land on an item in a menu it only half has the focus, if you TAB you move to the next menu choice then you can SHIFT-TAB back to be able to press ENTER to actually go to the originally landed on menu choice. When on a link, such as in a menu, the ENTER key will follow the link. For example, SHIFT-ALT-M, TAB gets you onto the Faculty Main Menu choice which you can then follow by pressing ENTER or you can move to the next menu choice with TAB. SHIFT-ALT-0 (zero) will bring you directly to this page. SHIFT-ALT-4 will land you in the search box.

On your Mac (etc., Apple) computer first you probably should be sure System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > "All Controls" (the radio button at the very bottom---below the shortcuts scroll box) is checked. This setting is user login specific so each user on a computer will need to set it. The Firefox browser effectively won't work at all without it though Safari (which we do not support) will. (If you really must have accessibility and use Safari, see our "try 1" version of this accessibility page.)

Mac Firefox: RECOMMENDED only if you have System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > "All Controls" checked. You can press CONTROL plus the access key. If that follows a link or lands you in the search field (CONTROL-4) then everything is fine. With "All Controls" checked, an access key that takes you to the start of a menu takes you there visually but only half-focuses on the first menu choice. If you TAB you move to the next menu choice then you can SHIFT-TAB back to be able to press ENTER to actually go to the first menu choice. When on a link, such as in a menu, the ENTER key will follow the link. For example, CONTROL-M, TAB gets you onto the Faculty Main Menu choice which you can then follow by pressing ENTER or you can move to the next menu choice with TAB. CONTROL-0 (zero) will bring you directly to this page. CONTROL-4 will land you in the search box. For more on Mac Firefox see ².

Section 508 Compliance

We are striving to be in compliance with the provisions of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Unfortunately there are no bright-line guidelines that can be met to know when one is, or is not, fully in compliance. We believe we are in compliance at the moment for most things as the default however, a fuller accessibility implementation is accessible via ALT-I. The issue is made difficult by browser incompatibilities. In default mode, for example, in drop-down selection lists we are in compliance with the "keyboard use of forms" on browsers such as Firefox and Safari that only trigger the onchange() event when a dropdown list item is actually selected. If you have JavaScript on, we are not in compliance on browsers such as Internet Explorer and Opera which (mistakenly) perform the onchange() event every time the DOWN ARROW key is pressed, i.e., you can only DOWN ARROW to the first selection choice before being instantly taken there via JavaScript code. Using our ALT-I accessibility mode you can get the proper keyboard behavior in all browsers or, in Internet Explorer you can turn off JavaScript in your security settings¹ and in Opera (and most browsers) you can turn JavaScript off somewhere among the settings for content or web pages. In Opera (and most other browsers) with JavaScript off you can tab to the Jump-to selection list, DOWN ARROW to make a selection then TAB, ENTER to go to the "GO" submit button then to the selected site.

Page Design

All pages are coded in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. The mark-up is mainly used for semantic purposes, and is in in compliance with the standards of this language. To support the widest range of browsers we do, however, occasionally use a table structure for layout purposes. We use the smallest table structure necessary to achieve the visual objective and clearly summarize the purpose. Such table structures will read row (by row) across columns exactly as if the contents were in a list, i.e., they will linearize correctly. Most visual presentation is implemented with Cascading Style Sheets.

More Information on Accessible Web Sites

MSU Web Accessibility Information: The Michigan State University web accessibility guidelines and related pages.
Dive Into Accessibility: An online book written and maintained by accessibility expert Mark Pilgrim. An excellent place to start.
The U.S. Access Board: A Federal agency devoted to accessibility. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is the work of this board.
Web Accessibility Initiative: An initiative of the World Wide Web consortium, the purpose of which is to pursue accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.

¹More on Windows Internet Explorer JavaScript: To turn off JavaScript (which is minimally used in this site and which is never essential) in Internet Explorer you can set the "Zone Setting" to "Restricted" by locating the zone status information along the bottom edge of the Internet Explorer browser window (it will say normally "Internet" in an area toward the right end of the status bar. Double click that then pick the "Restricted" zone choice then click the "Sites" button and add www.isp.msu.edu. You can double check that JavaScript is off by clicking the "Custom level..." button then toward the bottom finding "Scripting" "Active Scripting" and being sure the "Disable" option is selected. (If you already have JavaScript off for the "Internet Zone" then it is off for our site too, no need to make us a restricted site.)

²More on Mac Firefox: You may wish to examine an Accessibility Extension for Firefox available at http://firefox.cita.uiuc.edu/index.php. Extension Add-ons for Firefox are user login specific. And, what's worse, for a multiple user Mac, Firefox may NOT update for individual users, only for the original user that installed it though the other users will use the new version on their next login. At least that is my experience. For the non-initial installer, the Firefox update process does go through all the motions and appears to have completed correctly however, once the user closes Firefox and reopens it, whatever old version the initial installer last did will be what the user gets, not the "just installed" version. I have no idea what the implications are for "automatic updates" of the Accessibility Extension given that the extension install IS login user specific, an install to the initial installer's login--again, at least in my limited experience--DOES NOT become visible to other individual login users. (Without "All Controls" checked, an access key that is to take you to the start of a menu takes you there visually but then there is no way whatsoever to move into and through the menu. Neither TAB nor OPTION-TAB get you into the page or its content. It may help some if you have checked the Firefox Preferences > Advanced > General > "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages" check box but you'll need to push the up and/or then down key several times to finally land somewhere that you can then see where you are and even then it will help tremendously if you have turned on the ISP bolded links feature.)

*Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to read PDF documents.