AFRICALLIA

Preamble

With the aim of making information accessible to as many people as possible, this site has been created to provide alternative means of publishing information, irrespective of the media used (i.e. alternative content accessible within the same pages). The methods used comply with the W3C’s international recommendations, and are rated AA in terms of accessibility, providing a quality service to the majority of Internet users.

Accessibility policy

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web, gives the following definition of Web accessibility :

“Making the web and its services available to all individuals, irrespective of their hardware or software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location or physical or mental aptitude. “

Each individual is different, and the Internet must be adapted for every user, irrespective of any disability (physical, auditory, visual or motor).

According to current estimates, at least 10 to 20% of individuals suffer from one deficiency or another in the majority of so-called “developed” countries. Some of these deficiencies do not represent an obstacle to web access, but it is important to remember that sooner or later, we will all be affected by the ageing process.

A website is said to be “accessible” when anyone can access it in the same way irrespective of the following :

• Browser used (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, Safari etc),
• Computer operating system (Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc.),
• Display peripheral (type of screen, laptop computer etc.),
• Technical help (refreshable braille display, screen magnifier or voice synthesiser etc.)

For example, a partially sighted person may use a screen magnifier to increase the size of characters on pages they visit. A visually impaired person may visit the same pages using a refreshable braille display and voice synthesiser.

Making a site accessible means contributing to the social, cultural and professional integration of people with disabilities.

In addition to their moral obligation, sites which are public in nature now also have a legislative obligation to open up online information to all (find out more about the February 2005 Act). Design philosophy

The principle of the web is to provide content which can be accessed in the same way independently of a user’s hardware, environment, browser, deficiencies or culture (language).

More clearly stated, a webpage must be thought through and designed in such a way that its content is completely independent of the way in which this content will be delivered on a screen or any other mechanism (palmtop, WAP-enabled telephone, TV, search engine, printer, braille display, etc.).

This separation of content (the part which “must” be universally accessible - i.e. the HTML document) and format (the part which is used only by graphical media - i.e. CSS) enables the same message to be delivered to each user, irrespective of the tools they are using.

Display size: all text on the site has a relative font size - i.e. it can be increased as needed.

To change the text display size :

• For various browsers: Ctrl + mouse wheel
• Internet Explorer: go to Display » Text size and select the size you require .
• Mozilla, Firefox and Netscape: press CTRL and + to increase text size, and Ctrl and - to reduce it.
• Opera: use the + and - keys on the numeric keypad, or go to Display » Zoom and select the size you require.