Web Accessibility Statement

What is this about?

This information describes how we build our website to be accessible to everyone.

Select a topic below to learn more:

Standards compliance
Access keys
Navigation aids
Links
Images
Visual design
Acronyms

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan developed this website to ensure its content is available to the widest possible audience, including readers using assistive technology or accessibility features. By adhering to guidelines for accessible web design, we acknowledge the diversity of communication methods, available technologies and varied user ability.

BCBSM strives to maintain conformance to W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The public pages on this site meet the criteria for Level A compliance with WCAG guidelines.

Standards compliance

BCBSM.com has been validated for compliance with W3C CSS (cascading style sheets) and XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

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Access keys

Most browsers support jumping to specific links by typing keys defined on the website. On Windows, press ALT + an access key; on Macintosh, press Control + an access key.

BCBSM.com recognizes the following access keys:

Access key 1 — Home page
Access key 4 — Search box
Access key 9 — Feedback
Access key 0 — Accessibility statement

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Navigation aids

All pages have rel=home, search, glossary and index links to aid navigation in text-only browsers and screen readers. Mozilla users can also take advantage of this feature by selecting the View menu, Show/Hide, Site Navigation Bar or Show Only As Needed (or Show Always). Opera 7 has similar functionality.

The home page and all subsequent pages include a search box (access key 4).

The tab order for all pages is consistent and designed for usability.

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Links

In cases where a link does not fully describe the target, the link contains a title describing it in greater detail.

A link containing the words "website" will open a new browser window linking the user to an external website.

Whenever possible, links have been written to clearly articulate the target when taken out of context. Many browsers, such as JAWS, Home Page Reader, Lynx, and Opera, can extract the links contained on a page to allow the user to browse the list separately from the page context.

Link text is never duplicated; two or more links containing the same text will always point to the same target.

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Images

All content images include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.

Images that convey meaning have a [D] link to display descriptive text of the image and/or its relevance.

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Visual design

BCBSM.com uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.

Internet Explorer has a limited text resizing feature ("View," "Text Size") and only works with relative font sizes. A special style sheet using relative font sizes is automatically served to visitors using Internet Explorer.

The content of each page is still readable even if the user's browser or browsing device does not support style sheets.

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