At MIT we are committed in making our website accessible to all users.
If you have any difficulties accessing any part of the website please let us know using the feedback page. We also welcome any suggestions to help make MIT’s website more accessible.
Standards compliant
With better design and accessibility in mind, we aim to:
- ensure that all pages validate as XHTML + RDFa.
- satisfy the Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints of the WCAG 1.0.
Structured HTML and separation of content from presentation
We have done our best to keep our pages well-formed and to avoid using HTML tags for anything except their semantic value (implied purpose).
For example, we have used:
- div tags for page division/sections and table strictly only for displaying tabular data.
- fieldset, legend, label to markup our forms.
- headings tags to denote document hierarchy.
- lists for all list of things, especially menus.
We have also kept our HTML free of presentational code and placed all presentational code in external CSS files. However CSS can be switched on or off and pages will still render information accurately.
The combination of structured HTML and the separation of content from presentation achieved by using CSS bring many benefits in accessibility and performance.
Text size
Your browser should allow you to increase or decrease the size of the text on this website.
Most visual browsers have a menu named “View” or “Display” which could have an option called “Text Size” or “Zoom” or something similar. This option lets you increase and decrease the size of the text on this website. In addition some browsers also let you use the Ctrl+MouseWheel or Ctrl++ and Ctrl+-.
Skip link
Each page in the website includes a “Skip to Content” link. This link takes you directly to the main content bypassing the navigation. Skip links are particularly useful for users using Assistive technology or just the keyboard.
Keyboard users
The website also facilitates navigation by keyboard. The tabbing is in natural order and the links are highlighted as they are tabbed. The “Skip to Content” link also becomes visible and gain focus when tabbed by keyboard. A highlighted link can be navigated by pressing “Enter” on your keyboard.
Access keys
We do not use access keys as this may interfere with the normal operation of the keyboard.