NPC Web Accessibility Statement

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NPC is fully committed to developing and maintaining a maximally accessible web presence.

(Please note that as of 24 August 2007, the standards espoused in this document are no longer fully supported, in that the original author no longer has primary responsibility for the accessibility of npc.edu.)

This process begins with pages that meet validity standards for (X)HTML and CSS as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium. The Consortium and its associated validators are independent and non-commercial entities which allow automated checking online. In the footer section of most pages, you can find links that will refer our code to validators at w3.org, which will report on our compliance for you.

In the absence of a validator that fully and dependably meets these standards in the areas of WAI and Section 508 compliance, we use a combination of companies and entities to cross-check ourselves for maximum accessibility under these criteria. These include:

As a rule, we test to the highest stable published standards available, as indicated by the icons at the bottom of this page. As of this writing, all top-level pages and most subsidary ones have been redesigned to this level. The process will continue until everything NPC publishes online rises to it.

Our committment does not stop, however, with simple validity checks. We also test pages in a variety of contexts to insure that they are readable in many non-standard configurations. For example, we route new templates through the Lynx Viewer, which allows us to simulate how our pages look in text-only sessions.

You may also be interested to check a simulation of how our pages look to people with various color-vision impairments, using the Colorblind Web Page Filter at wickline.org (though the author warns us that the tool is still in beta).

We maintain backward compatibility with older browsers and operating systems for (roughly speaking) a period of five years after they've become obsolete or have been upgraded. For example, the Netscape browser will render NPC pages correctly if you're using the latest version, but may not look exactly as intended if you haven't upgraded since the 1990's (version 4). (Early browser support for accessibility enhancements like CSS was meager.)

We also rigorously monitor trends in technology to maintain forward compatibility--the site renders properly, for example, in the latest version (as of August 2007) of Mozilla Firefox (2.0.0.6), a free open-source cross-platform browser which is rapidly gaining a share of the market.

Most importantly, we realize that none of these measures are adequate unless they work for YOU. We want to hear from you if you encounter difficulty in any way as you try to navigate our site, and will respond with any reasonable effort to alleviate your concerns or troubles in that regard.

(The badges below are also external links which will take you offsite from npc.edu.)

Bobby 508 compliant...

...and Priority 1, 2 and 3 approved.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines document AAA compliance.

Cynthia Says "Yes".

Site Valet approves too.

TAW conviene: "excelencia de la accesibilidad"

Text-only works fine.