Accessibility

We use in-house expertise to continuously assess the accessibility of our website. Our methods include but are not limited to the following:

WCAG 2.0 Guidelines: We have checked through each guideline as thoroughly as possible, and furthermore reference it when looking into any potential accessibility issues.
Automated Evaluations: We use Google Chrome’s built-in accessibility audits and WebAIM’s WAVE tool, then look into any issues it reports.
The Contrast Test: We use the NoCoffee Vision Simulator Chrome extension to test low contrast and color blindness. We also use the WCAG Color Contrast Checker on any elements that appear to be too faint, or elements recommended by automatic evaluation.
The Keyboard Test: We tab through the page to ensure all interactive elements of the page are accessible with Tab and Enter.
The Resize Test: We use the Ctrl-Plus/Ctrl-Minus shortcuts to make sure that nothing prevents the text and other elements from being resized by the user.
The Screen Reader Test: We use NVDA to browse the site and see if it works intuitively, with all elements properly labelled and spoken. We also use the speech viewer to check output, and press Ins+F7 to check the Elements List.

Compatibility with Browsers and Assistive Technology

This website endeavors to conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA. We also aim for WCAG 2.1 and Level AAA where feasible. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. Conformance with these guidelines will help make the web more user friendly for all people.

This site has been built with standards-compliant HTML5, WAI-ARIA attributes, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Compatibility and Standards

The STAR Center is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so adhere to many of the available standards and guidelines.

Screen Readers

Limitations and Alternatives

Known Limitations and Usability Issues

Alternatives for Limitations

Reasons for Limitations

Assessment Approach

Our website should display correctly in current browsers, and using standards compliant HTML/CSS code means any future browsers should also display it correctly.

Supported browsers include Internet Explorer 11 and currently supported versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Running current versions of these browsers has worked consistently since the site’s current design was launched in 2016 until the time of this writing in 2024.

Browsers not supported include Internet Explorer versions 10 or less. In particular, Internet Explorer 8 or less is not functional. Older versions of other browsers may have issues, such as video backgrounds not automatically playing on Safari on iOS versions 9 or less.

Screen reader support is officially tested with NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA). Other screen readers such as JAWS or VoiceOver should work based on the underlying technology, but are not officially tested. Our goal is to have everything work interactively and with a solid level of usability.

For quick navigation, there is a Skip to Main link. The common, repeating parts of the page use ARIA landmarks. You can use D in NVDA to traverse them. Sections within the main landmark use headings. You can use the H key in NVDA to traverse them. The VoiceOver rotor in iOS can also traverse headings.

Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility of the STAR Center’s website, there may be some limitations. Below is a description of known limitations and potential solutions. Please contact us if you observe an issue not listed below.

The portrait orientation (mobile) navigation menu has a tab order at the end.
Some purely decorative Revolution Slider image carousels, such as on the Our Story page, change based on timing and do not offer keyboard access.
Some links on our blog listing, such as the author name, can be repetitive to screen readers.
Heading tags are not always in perfect order from level 1-6.
Some images in our past blog posts possibly may not include proper alt text.
Some PDF files in past blog posts possibly may not have embedded text for screen readers.
A Mailmunch popover for subscribing to our e-mail list may occur, with the close button being obscured.

There are some tips that can work around these issues.

If using a mobile device, use the Open Mobile Menu button at the top of the page, then use the left side of the screen to navigate the navigation menu.
A full-screen landscape mode is recommended for desktop access. You can press the Windows Key and Up Arrow to maximize the window.
The blog listing page is most easily navigated by using headings, which link to the articles.
If you encounter images without alt text or PDFs without embedded text, let us know.
The MailMunch popover can be closed by using the link before the “Enter name (Edit)” field, which will be the same as the title of the page.

Fixes were tried the tab order of the navigation menu in mobile mode, but it ultimately caused more problems than it solved. A more complex set of fixes would be necessary. The same applies for the ordering of the heading tags.

A number of elements on our site are controlled by third parties, such as the MailMunch or Revolution Slider plugins. We have put in bug requests with the authors, and hopefully future versions of these plugins will fix it.

We have tried to include proper alt text and embedded text in PDFs where all possible, but there may be some older blog posts or other less-visited areas of the site that we haven’t checked.

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of our website. Please let us know if you encounter any accessibility barriers.

E-mail (best): it@star-center.org

Phone (business hours): 731-668-3888

Postal address: 1119 Old Humboldt Road, Jackson, TN 38305

We try to respond to feedback within 5 business days.