Site Information
This site adheres to commonly accepted web development standards and is structured to be accessible by all users (including those with physical challenges) and most current readers and browsers. It has also been designed to function with a broad range of screen resolutions and browsers used with a less than maximized window. The following sections provide additional information on accessibility, browser compatibility, and standards compliance.
Accessibility
This site conforms to the standards outlined in the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) 1.0 level A. For those with poor vision or utilizing technologies with small displays, many of the images used will scale automatically and the layout has been designed to accomodate different display resolutions and font sizes. For those who are color blind, colors with sufficient contrast have been used. For those who are blind, the overall structure has been designed to support the effective use of screen readers including shortcuts, consistent navigation, and text descriptions of visual elements. For those who cannot use a mouse, all links, buttons, and other active elements are accessible by keyboard. We support and encourage the use of web accessibility standards so people with diabilities or special requirements can use the web in general and this site in particular. To find out more about the WAI, visit the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) WAI web site.
Standards Compliance
This site is built in accordance with standards issued by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and meets the requirements of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) 5.0 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 1. We support and encourage the use of these standards so web sites can be fully utilized regardless of the browser, operating system, or device employed. We also support the work of the Web Standards Project. If you are unfamiliar with web standards or are uncertain why they are important, we encourage you to review this helpful F.A.Q.
Browser Compatibility
Browsers that adhere to the various web standards noted above are capable of presenting web pages as the designer intended, regardless of the operating system, device, or browser employed. In addition, when all browsers adhere to these standards, web designers can develop sites with the knowledge that they will essentially work and appear the same regardless of the browser used.
These are very imporant elements and are critical to the continued growth of the web by insuring a consistent user experience and reducing the burden on developers to support multiple browsers instead of a single standard. Many of the browsers currently available (as of 2009) support basic HTML, CSS, and XHTML standards. If you are not using the latest version of your favorite browser, please consider upgrading it.
If your browser does not support these standards, we urge you to contact the developers of your browser and request that it be updated to support all currently applicable web standards. If this cannot or will not be done, consider supporting these web standards by moving to a browser that does so. While we recommend Firefox, many other suitable browsers are available from a variety of groups, organizations, and companies and for a variety of operating systems.
