Accessibility
1837-47 Ammi Burnham Young (base).
1913-15 Peabody & Stearns (tower).
The federal government ignored Boston's height restrictions when they expanded the building by adding the tower in 1915. Until the completion of Prudential building in 1964, the Custom House was the tallest building in New England.
- Site Map
- What's New
- Notices
- • Accessibility •
- Acknowledgements
- Site Administration
- Promotional Images
- • About This Site •
Access Keys
Many browsers support going to specific pages or links defined on the web site.
| Macintosh | Control + access key |
| Linux | Alt + access key |
| Windows | Alt + access key |
| Opera | Shift+Esc + access key |
All pages on this site define the following access keys which follow the UK Government recommendations.
| s | Skip navigation |
| 1 | Home page |
| 3 | Site map |
| 4 | Search the site |
| 8 | Legal notices |
| 0 | Accessibility page |
| t | Top of page |
Standards Compliance
We try to conform to the following standards.
- W3C Web Content Accessibility AA level.
- U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines.
- W3C XHTML 1.1.
This web site makes heavy use of images and some of them are not directly related to the surrounding content. Since many of the images are links to view larger formats, the site is technically ineligible for a WC3 AAA rating. We do, however, pass the remaining AAA automated validation tests.
Navigation Aids
All pages contain a navigation outline above the content. This is implemented in the form of an outline that doesn't require javascript to use. An additional outline appears in the left margin to provide a more in-depth view as you go deeper into the site.
Al pages have rel home links and
previous/next links where applicable.
Links & Images
Links are written to make sense out of context and have
title attributes to describe the link in greater
detail. Images used include descriptive ALT
attributes.
There are no javascript: pseudo-links so all
links can be followed in any browser.
Visual Design
This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout. Relative font sizes are used and the pages have been tested to maintain a reasonable layout when viewed at different font sizes. There isn't much we can do about the photographs.
The content can be read without the use of stylesheets although it isn't very pretty and the stylesheet hides sub-menu items. All pages contain a skip to link to skip over the navigation outline.
Scripting and Applets
This site makes use of Javascript to smooth the edges and is not required to access most of the content. The following content areas require Javascript or Java to be enabled:
- the photograph montage on the home page
- pre-submit checking of field data on forms
- the interactive games
Reporting a Problem
It takes considerable effort to produce a web site that is compliant with a number of moving specifications and guidelines. Sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes the specs are not enough to produce an accessible site. Please let us know how we can make it better through our comment form.
