For the past few months, Doxpop has been working to make the E-Filing portion of our site more accessible (learn more here). Our goal is to conform to WCAG 2, level AA guidelines near the end of October, and it's looking like we'll meet that goal.
We've been working on this project for months. Up to this point, you may have noticed subtle changes to provide better contrast, better labeling for icons and buttons, or changes to ensure that using your browser's zoom feature gracefully increases the size of all elements on our pages without scrambling the layout.
However, we're now at the stage of the project where we're releasing behavior updates that depend on current browser versions along with carefully reviewing keyboard navigation and labeling of the fields you fill out on each page making sure that if you opt to use your keyboard instead of a mouse to move through the fields, the ordering makes sense. This is a not-so-subtle change.
First, if you run into new error messages or issues, make sure your browser is up to date as some of the features we're adding in the background rely on current versions. This is typically found in the About or Help option in your browser's setting menu.
In particular, this means that if you've been using your tab key to quickly navigate while filing, and are the kind of user who moves very quickly through a filing, you should pay close attention over the next few weeks as some tab ordering may change on the pages you use.
We are also making sure our "action" buttons are consistently labeled to avoid confusion. For instance, in the past, we may have had a button labeled "done" in one place, and in another place labeled the button"save" to mean the same thing. These probably won't confuse you for more than a moment, but we want to make sure you know in advance of these minor changes.
The biggest changes to field layout and ordering are in our user and account administration pages, so the next time you need to do any administrative work in your account, slow down and take a second to re-orient yourself before you use the administrative tools.
Most of the changes we're making are intended to make it easier for users with visual impairment, colorblindness, or dyslexia to use our site. As we roll out these changes, we'd appreciate any feedback you can give us, especially if one of those conditions applies to you. It's one thing to meet a set of guidelines, but we'll know we've really made a difference if we hear that someone's work became a little easier.
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