Web Accessibility

Valentine's Day: Love and Romance Through the Ages provides an educational online experience for a general public audience, one that includes people with disabilities. The exhibit is compatible with a broad variety of Internet access technologies. Through rigorous testing, this research project has resulted in the first exhibit, produced by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), to be accessible to people with disabilities.

In designing this exhibit, we have endeavoured to conform to the Government of Canada’s Common Look and Feel (CLF) accessibility standards, which are aligned with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), priorities 1 and 2 developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

General Instructions for Users with Visual Disabilities

Our virtual exhibit was designed to be compatible with a variety of adaptive and portable technologies, including:

• screen reading applications
• dynamic Braille displays
• voice recognition applications
• a variety of portable communications devices such as Internet enabled cell phones, portable data assistants (PDA’s)
• various other technologies reflecting the diversity of citizen’s communication requirements.

For optimal compatibility, please select “Turn Off Flash Elements” in the main section navigation. Major components and the interactive functionality of this site have been tested with the most widely used adaptive and portable technologies, browsers and user preferences. All images presented on this site are accompanied by narrative descriptions for people who cannot or choose not to view graphics.

Some pages require the use of forms mode. Some links open pop-up or additional browser windows.

Instructions for Users Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

All audio files on this site, including those in the e-card component, have text transcriptions.

Contact us

If you have a suggestion or comment on the accessibility features of our exhibit, please let us know by sending us an email at service@chin.gc.ca.

Accessibility and Virtual Exhibits

Consult our Consult our Internet Accessibility Tip Sheet, a document based on CLF and W3C standards, which may be used as a tool by heritage organisations wishing to create accessible content.