Accessibility Standards for the WGS Website
The Women's and Gender Studies Department at Cal Poly is committed to universal access of web content. All our web pages are designed and developed to be ADA Section 508 Compliant (US). We monitor changes to accessibility requirements, best practices and user needs and adjust our pages accordingly. This page describes our standards for meeting the requirements of ADA Section 508 
and CSU/campus policies on accessibility .
Site Navigation
- The main navigation to our site is grouped by headings.
- The main navigation is preceded by a level-one “Navigation” heading. Related links are grouped together below level-two headings.
- In all our pages, we adopt the “navigation first” reading order. More specifically, the reading order of all our pages (with the exception of pages displaying video clips) is as follows:
- “Skip to Content,” “Accessibility Standards,” “Site Map,” and “Contact Us” links.
- Links to Cal Poly home and to Women's and Gender Studies Department home
- Search box
- Navigation
- Main content of current page
- Footer Links
- Contact information, last update, and credits (each preceded by a level-two heading).
- Longer pages begin with a list of links to sections on the page. This list of links has the level-two heading “Page Contents”
- The Scrapbook page has its own navigation for scrapbook pages. Links to text-only versions of scrapbook pages are designated with the icon
whose alternate text is “text-only version” - All external links, which open new windows, are clearly indicated with the icon whose alternate text is “opens new window”
Access Keys
The following access keys are avaiable on our web site:
- 1 - Home
- 3 - Site Map
- 4 - Search
- 0 - Accessibility standards (this page)
- s - Skip to content
We have followed loosely the access key assignments recommended by the British government for all of its web pages. As WebAim.org reports, this is one of the few access key standards currently available.
Scripts
We currently use “unobstrusive” Javascript only for the slideshows in our WGS Scrapbook pages. Users with Javascript disabled will be taken to an alternative page that displays transcriptions of the text in scanned documents and enlargements of non-document images. These alternative pages can be accessed directly from the table of contents of the WGS Scrapbook by following the “text-only” or “text and images” link for each page.
The slideshows in the Scrapbook are fully keyboard accessible. Keyboard shortcuts for the slideshow viewer are listed on each individual Scrapbook page.
Style Sheets
All visual styling on our pages is done with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Beyond the standard style sheet for visual presentation on a computer monitor, our pages also have separate style sheets for print media (see “Printing” below) and for handheld devices.
Note on slideshow viewer with CSS disabled and Javascript enabled
Because the slideshow viewer we are using uses a combination of CSS and Javascript, the behavior of the viewer when CSS is disabled but Javascript is enabled varies somewhat accross browsers.
We have tested the slideshow viewer on Firefox 2.0, Internet Explorer 6, and Internet Explorer 7 on Windows. We have also tested it on Safari 3.1 and Firefox 3.0 on a Mac (OS X). The accessibility of the slideshow in Firefox was the best in our tests. Overall, the greatest accessibility when CSS is disabled but Javascript is enabled is obtained by either using the keyboard shortcut keys to navigate the slideshow or disabling both CSS and Javascript.
Printing
Our web pages print without the main navigation bar in a layout that scales easily. Scaled to 200%, our pages print comfortably in portrait orientation. Our pages print comfortably in landscape orientation for magnifications up to 300%.
Forms
The two fillable, printable forms on our site are in Adobe's Portable Document Format (.pdf). These forms require the Adobe Reader (free to download), which is commonly found on most recent computers.
The two forms, the WGS Application Form and the WGS Minor Certification Form, can be submitted directly to the Women's & Gender Studies Department via email by clicking the button “Submit by Email to WGS” on each form.
Video Clips and Video Player
We may add some video clips to this site in the future. All our video clips wil be closed captioned. We use NCAM's ccPlayer to present our Flash videos. The NCAM ccPlayer requires Flash Player 8 or 9, which can be downloaded for free from Adobe's Flash Player download page . We have verified that ccPlayer is fully accessible to popular screen reading software on a PC (with Flash Player 9 installed) in the following configurations:
- Window-Eyes and Firefox 2.0
- JAWS and Internet Explorer 7
- JAWS and Internet Explorer 6
We have also verified screen reader access to all features of ccPlayer with the exception of the instructions window and the search captions window in the following configurations:
- Windows Vista Narrator and Internet Explorer 7
- VoiceOver and Safari 3.1 (OS X)
- Windows XP Narrator and Internet Explorer 7
- Windows XP Narrator and Internet Explorer 6
The keyboard shortcuts for ccPlayer once the player has focus are listed in the next section
Keyboard Shortcuts for Video Player
- p play/pause, e end (stop)
- f forward step, r rewind step
- u volume up, d volume down
- c captions on/off
- m show fullscreen video
- i instruction window
- s search captions for text strings
These keyboard shortcuts will also be listed on all pages on which there are video clips.
We will also provided text transcripts of each of our video clips.
Feedback on Universal Access
The Women's and Gender Studies department is interested in your feedback concerning the accessibility of our web pages. We welcome all your comments and suggestions.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank S. Anderson, S. Rutland, and M. Shaffer of Cal Poly Information Technology Services for their assistance in evaluating our site for ADA Section 508 compliance.
Document History
The following table summarizes the history of this Accessibility Standards page:
| Date | Version | Change | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02/03/2009 | 1.3.1 | Corrected typo in the section on video clips | R. Fernflores |
| 11/09/2008 | 1.3 | Changed document name from "Accessibility Policy" to "Accessibility Standards" Added Links to WARC and Cal Poly Accessibility site in first paragraph |
F. Fernflores |
| 10/24/2008 | 1.2.1 | Modified section on Navigation; "Navigation" heading now visible with CSS enabled. Added description of text-only icon for Scrapbook in Navigation section |
F. Fernflores |
| 10/11/2008 | 1.2 | Added section on forms | F. Fernflores |
| 10/10/2008 | 1.1 | Additions to section on Javascript for slideshow viewer. Minor additions regarding accessibility of slideshow viewer. Specific scaling factors modified for printing orientations. |
F. Fernflores |
| 10/9/2008 | 1.0 | First Published Version | R. Fernflores, F. Fernflores |
