Challenger Baseball - Sports for players with special needs

The HCBA website was intentionally designed to be accessible to the widest possible audience. It is compatible with popular screen reading software and was designed for those who for a variety of reasons may not be able to use a mouse. This website can be navigated using the keyboard on your computer or using other assistive devices.

There are various things you can do to change the look of this site to make it easier for you to read. You can make the text bigger and change the contrast. This section gives you instructions on how to do this, as well as information about website accessibility in general. 

Most internet browsers today support the ability to change text size preferences from within the browser. This feature allows users to change the size of text they see online to suit their preference, regardless of what text display options are built-in to a website. For example, if you're using Internet Explorer, look under "View" on the menu bar and choose "Text Size." 

Many of today’s internet browsers also have built-in controls for increased magnification of text and website content, often referred to as “zoom.” This allows users to increase or decrease the magnification of entire pages or just the text on those pages.

You can improve the contrast of this website by selecting a high contrast colour scheme.

This feature allows the user to skip over the repeated content at the beginning of each page (such as the heading and navigation) and go straight to the main page content. This is especially useful to those with screen readers because it gives the user a way to avoid listening through lengthy menus every time he or she enters a new page.

To try it, navigate to a new page, then press the Tab key. The "Skip to content" link should be selected. Press the Enter key to activate the link.

Some documents on this website are available in a PDF format. Adobe Acrobat is needed to open these files. Acrobat is available to download at no charge. The download itself may be quite large for some (between 8MB to 16MB) so check to see if it is already available on your computer.

Adobe provides an excellent guide to using PDF documents.

Images on HCBA have alternative text attributes, often known as alt text. This means that when an image is used on a web page to convey information its content is also described in the alt text. This means that the image can be understood by text browsers and assistive technologies such as screen readers. If an image is used for simply decorative purposes, the text attribute for the image is left empty in line with accepted best practice.

The HCBA website was created with colour impaired visitors in mind. The site was designed and was tested to conform to minimum contrast requirements for visitors with colour-blindness or other ocular impairments that could prevent them from reading text that does not have sufficient colour contrast with background colours. WCAG 2.0 level AA requires a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.

The HCBA website uses images in a strong and effective method for communication. Where visitors cannot view images, due to visual or technological issues, alternative text is provided to ensure that the content of those images - where relevant - is communicated to the visitor. When images are disabled for any reason, the entire site was built to be fully navigable and usable.

The website never relies exclusively on colour or image to convey information.

The HCBA website was created using only standard web technologies. The website requires no special scripting languages or plug-in software to navigate or use. Where Javascript has been used for enhanced features, those features are hidden when a visitor has Javascript disabled or does not have the appropriate version.

Device Independence simply refers to the idea that HCBA does not require the use of any specific piece of browser software or operating system. The site can even be navigated using a wireless device (i.e. Android or iPhone).