Help

This document goes into a bunch of technical detail about the stuff we're doing to make our site available to everybody. But what does this mean for you? It means that you can change the site to meet your needs.

  1. You can resize the text. From the menu at the top of your browser, select View > Text Size > and select your preference.
  2. You can resize this page. Resize your browser window and the page will exand and contract (within reason).
  3. If you're using a modern browser like Opera, or a screen reader like JAWS, you can skip from heading to heading using the keyboard. See structured semantic markup below.
  4. Any link (besides those clearly marked as sponsored results or advertisements) that would take you to another page in a new window is marked like this.
  5. If you've got JavaScript turned off, everything still works.
  6. There's a Skip to Content link at the top of every page that takes you down past the header and search bar (handy if you aren't using a graphical browser, or if your text is really big).

Accessibility Statement

We are committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to everyone. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please use our contact form, as we are continually striving to improve the experience for all of our visitors.

Standards compliance

  1. All pages on this site follow U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines.
  2. All pages on this site follow priorities 1 & 2 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
  3. All pages on this site validate as XHTML XHMTL 4.01 Transitional.
  4. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H2 tags are used for main titles, H3 tags for subtitles. For example, on this page, JAWS users can skip to the next section within the accessibility statement by pressing ALT+INSERT+3. Opera users can skip sections by using "S" and "W" to cycle forwards and backwards respectively through headings.

Structural Markup

Web pages on Citysearch.com include 4 different areas:

  1. A header bar that includes the main navigation and a search box,
  2. A main content area,
  3. A "side bar",
  4. A footer.

When CSS (Cascading Styles Sheet) are not applied to a document (or when using a screen reader), the 4 areas are read in the above order.

Images

  1. Unless they are purely decorative items, all images used on this web site have suitable alt attributes.
  2. Content should be usable/accessible with images "off" (disabled).

Links

  1. Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target.
  2. Links are written to make sense out of context.
  3. The first link in every page is a "Skip to Content"; it is to skip directly to the main section of the page (the content).
  4. URLs are permanent whenever possible.

Forms

  1. All form controls are appropriately and explicitly labeled.
  2. Form validation routine does not rely on client-side script.

Scripts

  1. We are using non obtrusive client-side scripts.
  2. Content of this web site is usable without JavaScript support.

Pop up Windows

  1. In visual browsers, unless CSS is disabled, a small icon appears next to links to external resources, the title attribute of these links says "(opens in new window)".
  2. Browsers with Popup Blockers should be able to access these external documents.

Visual design

  1. This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.
  2. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
  3. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.
  4. Any information conveyed through the use of color is also available without color (i.e. text based).

How to modify this site to fit your needs

These links explain the many ways you can make the web more accessible to you.

Accessibility software

  1. JAWS, a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is available.
  2. Home Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo is available.
  3. Lynx, a free text-only web browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
  4. Links, a free text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
  5. Opera, a visual browser with many accessibility-related features, including text zooming, user stylesheets, image toggle. A free downloadable version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and several other operating systems.