Accessibility to the Disabled

Our Basic Approach

America believes the Internet should be accessible to the disabled. Accordingly, this site has been designed with the intention of making as much content as possible available to the disabled. In pursuit of this goal, the America site has been designed using XHTML and CSS, two elements of Web Standards that are the keystones of Web accessibility.

The page templates of this site and randomly-selected pages with basic text content have been tested and validated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as adhering to Web standards, using their online validation services. In some instances, individual pages may not entirely validate due to situations beyond our control, for example if a link to an external Web site involves a non-compliant URL or the use of some scripts. At times we may include some features that do not adhere to strict Web standards, but which we feel may be helpful to some but not essential to the average visitor.

Accessibility to the Blind and Visually Impaired

This site should be easily readable by software programs that read Web pages aloud to the blind. We have done our best to ensure access to screen readers by using commonly-accepted techniques in the design of the page templates. No basic navigational aspects of this site use solely visual determinants. If, however, you notice any issues using a screen reader, please let us know. At times, some considerations led us to use techniques that are not strictly standard, such as opening links to external sites in a new browser window to enable easy return to our site. We have tried to keep such deviations from standards to a minimum and only used them for good reason.

The site design has been tested to be accessible to those with certain types of color blindness. Colors used in the navigational organization of the site should be easily used by the color blind, and differentiation between color is not essential to easy navigation.

On each page, an option has been provided to increase the size of the main content type to make it more readable to those who find the type size too small to read. When you select this option, information will be stored on your computer so that each page you visit will use the larger font size. You may also increase the size of the text on any page through your browser's viewing options.

Accessibility to the Deaf and Hearing Impaired

No essential content of this site is contained in audio-only files. Some audio content is provided for additional enrichment. Where possible, we will provide a transcript or textual summary. Please note that transcription may not always be an option for some audio files.

Accessibility to the Cognitively Disabled

We have avoided the use of fast-moving, flickering or flashing content in this site.

Looking Ahead

The America site has been carefully planned to be as accessible as possible while still providing many different experiences and types of content. At times, this may require carefully-considered trade-offs. If you have any comments or suggestions to improve the accessibility of this site, please let us know.