This topic includes information about how the accessibility features in the City of Eugene Web site work. That information is placed at the beginning of this topic. Additional text about how the online Help for the Web site displays follows the accessibility information.
Every page in the Eugene Web site includes links at the top that provide quick navigation to main sections lower on the page. If these links were visible, they would appear at the very top of the page, before both the Web Demos and Tips link and the Search boxes.
These links are read by the assistive software that you install on your computer, and allow you to skip the main navigation links that display different parts of the Web site. When the page is first displayed, pressing the Tab key from the top of the page moves you through the hidden links.
For example, the first link on the City Home page, "Jump to main Portal content," jumps your focus to the top content line of the page.
The second link, "Jump to How Do I...?" moves your focus to the How Do I? section. Currently (January, 2008) the Home page contains about twelve of these links, all placed at the top of the page before the Web Demos and Tips link to the Web site's online Help.
Other pages in the site have similar links, although many pages most likely contain fewer links than are found on the Home page.
These links vary from page to page, depending on the page content. Many pages include "Navigation - Current Level" links that link you to pages related to the current page that's being displayed. Some pages include "Navigation - Sub-Level" links that display other related pages.
To jump to a section on the page after the reader says the link, press the Enter key.
Many of these main sections on each page have been assigned an HTML Heading 2 style. You can use your screen reader to list headings on the page, and then navigate directly to a heading.
The Navigation sections are designed to give you access to the site's organizing structure.
Screen readers describe these lists with several comments:
For example, when you hear a statement similar to "List of six items," press the Down Arrow key to locate an item in the list.
To display any sub-menus related to that item, press the Enter key.
Press the Down Arrow and the reader says, "List of (a number of) items nesting level one." Press the Down Arrow again. If an item on the list has another sub-menu, you will hear the statement, "Graphic toggle the sub-menu clickable."
Press Enter to display another sub-menu, which the reader eventually identifies as "nesting level two."
Continue to press the Down Arrow to reach the line you want, and click Enter to display a new page.
If an item is not followed by the "Graphic toggle" statement, no lower level sub-menu exists, and you can just press the Enter key to display that page.
The Down and Up Arrow keys move you through the lists. The Enter key displays another sub-menu, or the page mentioned in the link.
Screen readers may treat the Web Demos and Tips online Help differently, depending on the browser you use. In the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, Freedom Scientific's version 7 JAWS software lists four frames for the online Help.
The content frame and the topic pane are the relevant frames. The content frame displays the Table of Contents and the topic pane displays the online Help topic.
In the Firefox browser, the Jaws screen reader identifies the content frame and its Table of Contents as being part of a navigation pane. In the two browsers different JAWS key strokes move you through this part of the Help structure.
In the topic pane, a graphic of an arrow pointing to the left displays near the top of the topic. Click this Back arrow link to view the Help topic previously displayed in the topic pane.
A graphic of a Close button follows the Back arrow. Clicking this link closes the online Help window.
The topic Stories to Tell lists some links to important topics.