ARATA


Site help

The information below is provided to help you understand the best way to view and use ARATA's web site, including details of shortcut keys and other accessibility features.

Page layout

The page is formatted using cascading style sheets (CSS) and valid structural markup. It can be viewed with style sheets turned off or by overriding the author's style sheet with your own 'user style sheet'.

The page has the following features, that are consistent across the web site:

  • Header: Full name of ARATA
  • Global navigation: These links provide the main level navigation for the site. Server side scripting has been used to remove any links to the page being viewed (ie links that would reload the same page)
  • Section navigation: This only appears on pages where there are a number of links to related pages (eg the page on ARATA Board is a sub-section of About Us)
  • Page Content: This is the central area and starts with the ARATA logo and level one heading.
  • Footer: Appears at the end of the content section and includes developer link, a link to the top of the same page (for longer pages or when magnification is being used), as well as links to site utilities, such as site map and site help.

Site map

There is a link to the site map from the footer of every page. The site map provides an overview of the site content and is useful if you are not sure where to look for specific information. It is marked up as a nested list, to show the site structure/hierarchy and relationship between pages.

Access keys

To make navigation quicker and easier, the following shortcut keys can be used:

  • Shortcut key to skip main navigation is 0
  • Shortcut key for Home is 1
  • Shortcut key for Contact is 2
  • Shortcut key for Site Map is 3
  • Shortcut key for Site Help is 4
  • Shortcut key to return to the top of the page is 9

Example: ALT + 1 then ENTER (Windows) or Control + 1 (Mac) takes you to the ARATA Home Page.

NOTE: Access keys are a W3C recommendation and are not yet supported by all browsers. These shortcuts have been coded for frequently used links and relate to the ARATA web site only.

Tab index

The tabbing order has been coded to facilitate logical progression around the page. However this may not be implemented correctly on all browsers. The order is:

  1. Skip Navigation link (jumps to start of page content)
  2. Section Navigation links (if relevant)
  3. Page content links
  4. Footer links
  5. Main Site Navigation links

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative AAA Conformance Logo.

Browser preferences

The ARATA site conforms to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It is coded in relative rather than absolute units and includes other features that allow individual users to implement their own preferences via the accessibility options available in their browser. These can be found under 'Tools' - 'Internet Options' in Microsoft's Internet Explorer or under 'Edit' - 'Preferences' in Netscape Navigator. If these functions are not available on your computer, you may want to update your browser.