ErgoDesignForum

Accessibility

The website uses Web standards to offer complete page accessibility to disabled persons (complete or partial blindness, motor or intellectual disabilities) while being compatible with the technical assistance media (Braille systems, vocal reader, browsing without mouse, etc.)

Alternative styles

The website is built with a system of alternative style sheets, which enable you to consult it and print the website according to your browsing preference settings.

Compliance with the W3C standards

The XHTML code complies with the HTML Specification of W3C; the CSS code complies with the CSS2 Specification.

It has also been tested using the W3C CSS validator. However, a bug known to the validator (related to character encoding) prevents direct CSS validation from HTML files. The URLs to be submitted to the CSS validator are thus those of the style sheets themselves; the website pages comply with the Directives for accessibility to Web contents. 

Accessibility rules

In its current version, we comply with all level 1 and level 2 accessibility rules.

Images

A textual equivalent is provided via the “alt” attribute of the significant images, when they are not described precisely in the text that they illustrate. The “alt” attribute of non-significant images is empty. Page setting does not use invisible images (priority 1); the images are used only when there is no CSS element making it possible to transmit the information concerned (priority 2). The images are used only when there is no CSS element making it possible to transmit the information concerned (priority 2). Using the CSS positioning properties makes it possible to maintain a consistent order:

• title, contents, menus (priority 1) in the documents without use of a CSS, by completely separating presentation and contents. 
  
• The site is organized into sections grouping together articles into topics (priority 2); 
  
• The page setting of the website is based exclusively on external style sheets (priority 2);
  
• pages are structured using the “h1” to “h6” titles in suitable order (priority 2);
  
• information forming item lists is marked with “ul”, “ol” and “dl” tags (priority 2).
  
• Thanks to the use of a single style sheet (priority 3), the presentation style is consistent throughout the website.

Scripts

The rare client scripts used on Argos are not used for any function essential to browsing or page consultation. These are accessible without JavaScript support (priority 1).

Character resizing

In order to make it possible for users to change the character size, page setting is based on relative units (“em” and percentages) rather than absolute ones (pixels) (priority 2).

You can increase or reduce the character size in your browser menu (View > Text Size) or by using your mouse (moving the scroll wheel while holding down the “Ctrl” key).

Metadata

Site pages use a set of standardized metadata (Dublin Core - priority 2).

Browsing and links

The sitemap is accessible from each page; the browsing menus reflect the information structure (priority 2). They are displayed on each page and permanently give access to the whole site (priority 3); related links are logically and structurally gathered together. Printable characters separate the adjacent links in order to avoid confusion by support systems (priority 3).