F-Worlds, by Carlos Simões

Accessibility statement

This is the official accessibility statement for F-Worlds. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at f.worlds@gmail.com.

Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the web site. On Windows, you can press ALT + the access key; on Macintosh, you can press Control + the access key.

We have followed the current trend regarding the use of author defined access keys and the potential conflict with other pre-defined keyboard shortcuts and we have decided to reduce the number of accesskeys to only a few (for more information, see the discussion at the Accessify Forum about the use of accesskeys). All pages on this site define the following access keys:

  • 0: accessibility statement;
  • 1: home page;
  • 2: content rating information;
  • 3: site map;
  • 5: navigation menu;
  • 7: privacy policy;
  • 8: terms of use;
  • 9: contact page;
  • Q: skip to content;
  • Z: top of page;
  • X: text-version;

Top | Map | Home

Standards compliance

  1. We believe that all pages on this site conform to level AAA of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and have passed all automated checks available. This is a judgement call; many guidelines are intentionally vague and can not be tested automatically. Also we have found evidences that some validators fail in some automatic tests, for instance, where there is an <acronym> tag inside an <href> tag. If you find a page that you think does not conform, please let us know.
  2. All pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict. This is not a judgement call; a program can determine with 100% accuracy whether a page is valid XHTML.
  3. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H2 tags are used for main titles, H3 tags for subtitles.
  4. The combination of valid CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and Strict XHTML helps to maintain a separation between content and presentation, enabling the document to be more easily rendered by non-visual user agents.
  5. We have developed our own text-only script that is available in every page (the "text-version" link). This will create instantly a text-only version of the page.

Browser tests

The pages are designed to render correctly on HTML 4 browsers and they are also designed to be usable on text-only browsers. It was tested and found fully compliant with the designer's master plan in the following browsers and operating systems:

  • Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows 95 OSR2, ME
  • Internet Explorer 6 SP1, Windows 98 SE, 2000 and XP
  • Netscape 7, Windows 98 SE, XP
  • Mozilla 1.7.2, Windows 98 SE
  • Mozilla Firebird 0.7, Windows 98 SE, XP, ME
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.0PR, Windows 98 SE, XP
  • Opera 7.54, Windows 98 SE, XP

It is usable also with Internet Explorer 4.x.and with versions 3.x of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator (as well as versions 4.x of the latest). Graceful degradation is expected to occur.

Text mode was tested with Lynx Viewer and AnyBrowser (also used to test graceful degradation). Safari 1.2 on Mac was tested by checking a screenshot provided by the iCapture service.

Top | Map | Home

Navigation aids

  1. Most of the pages have rel= home, author, previous, next, up links to aid navigation in text-only browsers. Netscape 6 and Mozilla users can also take advantage of this feature by selecting the View menu, Show/Hide, Site Navigation Bar, Show Only As Needed (or Show Always).

Links

  1. Most of the links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail.
  2. Links are written to make sense out of context.
  3. Adjacent links are separated in one of two ways: (a) structurally, as list elements, or (b) by interposing a non-blank character, such as a vertical bar. This helps screen readers to render the links distinctly.
  4. All links can be followed in any browser, even if scripting is turned off. An exception to this rule is the "Text-Version" link, which provides a way of unloading the standard stylesheet. This link will not work if Javascript is disabled.

Images

  1. All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes or will be used as a given item background.
  2. Complex images will include LONGDESC attributes or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers. This is a work in progress.
  3. There are no animated or flickering images.

Tables

  1. All data tables are simple. That is, the column headers for any given data cell are in the same column as the cell, and similarly for the row headers and rows. Column and row headers are always marked up as such, and always form the first column or row. This allows screen readers to render the table intelligently.
  2. Each data table has a caption and a summary. The summary is not displayed visually, but provides an extended description that can be read by a screen reader.
  3. No tables were used for layout purposes.

Visual design

  1. Externally linked stylesheets are used to deliver a consistent 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. Resolution and Color depth. This applies only to the full graphic version of this website, that can be disabled by unloading the stylesheet (see above the option "No Styles"), rendering the website virtually usable in every browsing equipment: The website was designed for a minimum resolution of 800x600 pixels and minimum colour depth of 256 colours. It is advisable not to use this website with resolutions below 800x600. Recommended settings are a color depth of 16 bits and a resolution of 1024x768 pixels.

Javascript and other scripting languages

  1. This site uses Javascript. However, Javascript support is not required to use this site, and may be disabled:
    • Most of the scripts used in this Web site are used for presentational purposes only and will not affect page's usability if Javascript or Java support is not available;
    • The "Text-Version" script is a Javascript one, so it will not be available also, but, to avoid any confusion, that option will not be visible if Javascript is not supported;
    • The "New Window" script used in our thumbnail pages will not prevent the full-size images of being loaded in case Javascript support is not available: In this case, the full-size images will be loaded in a regular browser window.
  2. No plugin whatsoever is needed to use this web site.

Top | Map | Home

Accessibility references

  1. W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
  2. W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
  3. W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.

Recommended tools

(X)HTML

CSS

Content Rating

Accessibility Tests

Structure, Deprecated HTML, Metadata Information as well as Styles, Images and Scripts on/off:

Top | Map | Home