Accessibility features on swisstxt.ch

We have applied many features on swisstxt.ch to help you navigate the site. Below is a comprehensive list which we encourage you to read.

We have worked with several organisations, including «Access for all» (Swiss foundation for technology adapted to people with disabilities), to test the usability of our site and to enhance and improve upon the experience for you.

We have built swisstxt.ch to WCAG 2.0 Level AA and have created a site that works well with all browsers. We recommend using the latest versions of these softwares.

Features

• Color and contrasts: Foreground and background colours contrast well throughout the site, with the majority of content appearing black on white. Also, information is never conveyed through color only.
• Skip links: Skip links at the top of the page help you navigate the most important sections of the page.
• Keyboard-only navigation: All features are operable without the need of using a pointing device.
• Images: All images (and images of text) have meaningful text alternatives, be it in the alt attribute or in text above or below (for complex images). Purely decorative images have empty alt attributes.
• Forms: All forms are accessible from the keyboard and have programmatically associated labels and grouping info. Custom form fields are optimised for accessibility. Error messages due to invalid user input are perceivable by assistive software.
• Tables: Data tables have appropriate headers. Complex tables have summaries.
• Headings: Headings are used extensively to describe content in a meaningful way. Not only the main content of each page is marked up using headings, but also all other areas of a page (header, navigation, footer, etc.).
• Links: Link names are unique and meaningful out of context. When a link opens a new window/tab or points to a different file format (PDF, audio/video, etc.), an appropriate hint is added to the link text.
• Landmarks: Landmarks are used for marking up the different elements of a page (header, main, footer, etc.).
• Use of ARIA: Wherever possible, traditional solutions (plain HTML) were preferred over Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) solutions. This is due to our experience that even modern browsers and screenreaders only offer limited support for ARIA. Also, this guarantees better compatibility with older assistive software.
• Use of Javascript: JavaScript is optimised to be used with assistive software. This mainly means that elements have self-speaking labels, focus is managed appropriately and feedback is given upon user interaction. For complex interactive elements, descriptive text is provided to help understand their functionalities.