Accessibility

Accessibility of the website of Austrian Standards

It is important to us to ensure that persons with special needs can access our website as easily as possible. Therefore, we are committed to offering our content free of barriers so that nobody is excluded from accessing information.

For this reason, we take account of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Moreover, we use the accessibility tool Siteimprove to continually check compliance with the Guidelines.

The following features contribute to the accessibility of our website:

  • optimized contrast ratios and colours
  • separation of content and layout
  • hierarchical structure
  • alternative texts for images
  • improved operability with keyboard
  • clear and easy navigation

Please note the following information on how to use our website as free of barriers as possible.

 

Main navigation display

The menu bar containing the main navigation elements of this internet site is located at the top of the browser window. This interaction element is marked by a background in a different colour.

When you move the mouse over the interaction bar, the menus for the individual items drop down. If you do not use a mouse, you can go to the menu needed by pressing the "Tab" key and open it by means of the "Enter" key. After opening a page, the menu is displayed on the left hand margin in the browser.

Navigation at the bottom of pages

At the bottom of each page, you also find interesting menu items and links that you can access both by means of your keyboard and your mouse.

Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks for further reading have an expressive title and a short description providing information on the pages linked. Furthermore, all the hyperlinks within the page content are underlined and shown in another colour.

Magnifying content

You can increase the size of content displayed by pressing the key combination "Ctrl" and "+" or decrease it by pressing "Ctrl" and "-" (Mac users press the "Apple" key instead of "Ctrl").

Operation without mouse

All items of menus and sub-menus can be accessed with the "Tab" key on your keyboard and selected by pressing the "Enter" key. Each content page has a first-level heading (H1) that you can directly access with your screen reader.

Use of screen readers

The website is suitable for screen readers.

Images

All the images have a descriptive "Alt" attribute that is displayed when you move the mouse over the image. A screen reader will also read the title of images separately.

Videos

Videos embedded into the website have generic subtitles or are accessible on the video platform YouTube and can be accessed with subtitles there.

Exceptions

Some services available on our website are not fully accessible yet. These are contents requiring extensive programming and older contents. We will be pleased to help you to get this information free of barriers in line with the WCAG 2.0 Guidelines. Please directly contact [email protected].

Continuous improvements

In spite of our efforts and the use of the accessibility tool Siteimprove, e-accessibility may not be perfect because of the great number of different pages and applications.

If you should have problems in accessing information anywhere on the website, please let us know! We always try to make improvements and will be pleased to receive your suggestions at [email protected]. Thank you very much for your help in advance!