Accessibility

The Optelec website was designed keeping the visually impaired in mind. We have done our best to make this website viewable for those that use screen readers and people with a visual impairment (low vision). This means closely following W3C, Bobby and other accessibility guidelines, testing the site carefully, and being open to feedback.

Text size

We have implemented on screen, plus and minus buttons for resizing text on our web pages to make it easier for those that do not own screen magnifying software.

When using the world wide web, both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox have incorporated built-in options that will help you browse websites that have not made modifications to meet a low vision user's needs. In Windows, you can choose the View menu, Text Size option to change text size. (The keyboard shortcut is Alt-V, X). Other browsers are likely to have the same or similar options. To zoom in and out on the entire page, not just the text, hold down the Ctrl key and use the plus (+) and minus (-) keys, or scroll the mouse wheel if you have one. For the Macintosh, use the Cmd key and + or - to quickly change the font size.

Colors

People with various eye conditions find different color combinations easier to use. This site supports tthree color schemes: black on white, white on black, and yellow on blue. Simply choose the color combination that works best for you and all pages on the Optelec website will be displayed in the color scheme you have chosen until you decide otherwise.

Access Keys

Blind users find it valuable to have shortcuts for jumping to important links. Access keys provide those shortcuts. We support the most commonly recommended set of access key shortcuts.

To use access keys, hold down the ALT key and press the appropriate access key. In Firefox, this will "click" the link; in Internet Explorer and most other browsers, it will highlight the link, which you can then "click" by pressing the Enter key.

We support the following access keys on every page of the site. In most cases, holding down ALT and then entering a number highlights a link; pressing Enter then selects the link and takes you to the destination:

Internet Explorer:

• ALT+1 <enter> - Home page
• ALT+2 <enter> - Skip to main content
• ALT+3 <enter> - Skip to sub-menu
• ALT+4 - Search (no <enter>, and you can then type straight into the Search box)
• ALT+0 <enter> - Skip to Footer Navigation

FireFox:

• SHIFT+ALT+1 - Home page
• SHIFT+ALT+2 - Skip to main content
• SHIFT+ALT+3 - Skip to sub-menu
• SHIFT+ALT+4 - Search (you can then type straight into the Search box)
• SHIFT+ALT+0 - Skip to Footer Navigation

Web Site Page Structure

This website is designed with consistency in mind. Once you have found your way around a single page, you should find that most other pages can be accessed in a similar fashion.

Points of consistency:

• All Optelec website pages have a main menu at the top of the document and choosing one of the links from this will take you into that area of the website.
• The main content of a page usually starts at the first or second heading on a page, and can be reached quickly either by jumping by heading, choosing from a list of headings in a screen reader, or by using the "skip to main content" link at the top of the page (ALT+2 access key).
• The title of each page can be read by most screen readers, describes the page, helping you know where in the website you are.
• Many links have titles, which give longer descriptions of where they lead. You can access these by telling your screen reader to use these, or you can move the mouse over the link and the fuller details will appear in a pop up window which disappears when you move the mouse away.
• All photographs and pictures of relevance have been given an appropriate alternative text description. Your screen reader can read these out, and moving the mouse over the picture can pop up this description. Unimportant images have an empty text description so that your screen reader will not read these out to you.

Feedback

Optelec is always interested in improving the accessibility of this Web site. If you have suggestions on how to do this for your particular setup, please send us feedback so that we can continue to improve your experience of this website. You can either use the Contact Us page to send an email or contact our WebMaster at 1-800-826-4200.