Overview:
Here we provide information for using this website as well as on related issues of standard compliance regarding usability, accessibility, web technologies, and user agent compatibility. If you have any problem with our website regarding these subjects, please get in contact with us.
Help
Help is given to visitors using different devices or software types. Please have a look at the general hints and at the specific hints for your device or software type. We provide help for visitors
- using any kind of device (general hints)
- using an auditive device, like a screen reader
- using a visual device, like a screen display:
- using a text browser
- using a graphical browser in general
- using a graphical browser by keyboard
- using a graphical browser by mouse (the most common case).
Using any kind of Device (General Hints)
No opening of a new browser window will be forced by this website, neither by external or internal links nor by downloads, as it is recommended for web usability and accessibility. You will have complete control over opening new windows; if you want you can use the features of your browser (using the File section, shortcuts or the context menu by mouse right-click).
There is an exception regarding some specific help information: They appear in a small pop-up window, if your settings allow Javascript and pop-ups. Links to these help information are associated with a hint that a new window will be opened. If you have disallowed pop-ups, these links will open the help page within the active window.
A list of all pages of this website can be found in the sitemap.
The Structure of this website is given in the sitemap as well as in the navigation menus. The main menu leads to the specific content pages, while the meta navigation menus indicate more general pages, like sitemap or help.
Language can be selected page-specificly by activating the links of the flag symbols 
for "To the English version of this page" and 
for "Link zur deutschen Version dieser Seite" (German version), appearing before the main content (in a graphical browser displayed on the right side). The flags will only have a link for the language that is not actually used on the current page.
How to register our news feed is explained in detail on our web feed page.
Using an Auditive Device, like a Screen Reader
Jump directly to main content, navigation, and other parts of each page by activating anchor links provided at the top and end of each page.
Top and end of each page can be reached immediately by activating the top and end links, appearing at the end or top of each page.
Links to external pages are marked with "- external -", indicating that you will leave our website by activating this link.
Links to pages in another language have a hint naming the language, like "- German".
Downloads are indicated by a hint to the file format, like "- PDF".
Your current location within the structure of the website is indicated by the hint "You are here:" before the menu item belonging to the current page. As it is recommended for usability, the current page is listed, but not linked within the menus. Therefore the current page won't appear in a list of links of the page.
Additional information, like expanding abbreviations and acronyms, is provided by a special feature – apart from the title attribute, which isn't used by most screen readers. If your screen reader relies on a text browser or on the source code of the page, most of the expanded information will always be read, within brackets. If your screen reader relies on the screen display of a graphical browser (like JAWS does), you may need to activate the link "Abbr" to get additional information. Here is an example after the link "Abbr": You should have heard a short example within brackets, at the latest after activating the link named before.
Printer-friendly layout is provided automatically by this website. In addition, there is a type of preview for graphical browsers (see below).
Using a visual Device, like a Screen Display
Using a Text Browser
Jump directly to main content, navigation, and other parts of each page by activating anchor links provided at the top and end of each page.
Top and end of each page can be reached immediately by activating the top and end links, appearing at the end or top of each page.
Links to external pages are marked with "- external -", indicating that you will leave our website by activating this link.
Links to pages in another language have a hint naming the language, like "- German".
Downloads are indicated by a hint to the file format, like "- PDF".
Your current location within the structure of the website is shown by the hint "You are here:" before the menu item belonging to the current page. As it is recommended for usability, the current page is listed, but not linked within the menus.
Additional information, like expanding abbreviations and acronyms, is provided by a special feature – apart from the title attribute, which isn't used by most text browsers. In a text browser most of the expanded information will always be given, within brackets. If it is not, activate the link "Abbr". Here is an example after the link "Abbr": At the end of the last sentence, there should be a short example within brackets, at the latest after activating the link named before.
Printer-friendly layout is provided automatically by this website. In addition, there is a type of preview for graphical browsers (see below).
Using a Graphical Browser in General
Every interactive element (links, linked images, ) reacts to your mouse or keyboard by changing colour and borders and/or by showing a little box or "tool tip". Visited links look different than unvisited links, even within the navigation menus. (Unfortunately, changing most of the display features by the toolbar will set prior visited links back to "unvisited").
Top and end of each page can be reached immediately by activating the 
top and 
end links placed at the right, near to the browser's scroll bar.
Links to external pages are marked with an arrow icon 
, indicating that you will leave our website by activating this link.
Links to pages in another language have a flag symbol, like 
.
Downloads are indicated by an icon for the file format, like 
.
Your current location within the structure of the website is shown by a little arrow 
"You are here:" before the menu item belonging to the current page. As it is recommended for usability, the current page is listed, but not linked within the menus.
For animation control within the graphical overview of global challenges you will get options by right-clicking, which opens a context menu for stopping, playing again, etc. The animation will only appear if your browser has a Flash plug-in (version 4 or higher). Unfortunately this plug-in doesn't provide animation control by keyboard. Alternatively a static graphic is provided, containing the same information. The printer-friendly layout will always show the static graphic.
[Error] [Error]Using a Graphical Browser by Keyboard
Tabbing (navigating by hitting the tabulator key) first introduces quick links in the top right corner of the web site. These quick links lead to (in order of appearance): main content, navigation, help, and language. (Not working in Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer, and neither in Opera because Opera uses tabs in forms only, while its other shortcuts [a/q, Shift+arrow keys] don't work with links not visible). Next in tab order (ink is highlighted when activated) are home, link to end of the page (at the bottom right), and the navigation menus. Last tab is the link to top of the page. On the contact page the contact form is the first tab. Within the metanavigation menus tabbing shows up additional information on the menu items (not working in Microsoft Internet Explorer).
Access keys are provided as keyboard shortcuts to select important pages of this website. They are shown within the menus, and within the sitemap (for example the access key for the homepage is zero). Numbers are chosen for access keys to minimize conflicts with browser specific shortcuts.
Using a Graphical Browser by Mouse
Link anchors are shown by hovering the mouse over headlines or keywords that have an anchor. This way you can identify a specific target within a page, if you want to address it with a hyperlink on your website or within an email, etc. (Displaying link anchors does not work with Microsoft Internet Explorer.)
Other help information can be found in the general help sections before.
Standards for Usability, Accessibility and Web Technologies
To make this website useful for its visitors it is designed following recommendations for usability and is complying with the standards for web accessibility and web technologies (like markup languages). Accessibility is important because users have different abilities and use different user agents (graphical browsers used by mouse or keyboard, text browsers, screen readers, etc.) and because of search-engines and other machine-processing that provide helpful information for users. For these reasons we refer to the following standards:
- Usability.gov : "Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines" by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Usability First™ by Foraker Design, useit.com by Jakob Nielsen, and other recommendations for web usability give the guiding principles for the design of this website.
- Global2015 website complies with level AAA (highest level) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with level 2 (highest level) of the similar German federal BITV ("Barriefreie-Informationstechnik-Verordnung", Barrier-free Information Technology Ordinance), and with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
- Global2015 website complies with the current international web technology standards by the :
- XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language) 1.0 Strict (relying on XML [Extensible Markup Language] 1.0)
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) 2.0/2.1
- RDF (Resource Description Framework)
- and DOM (Document Object Model).
and CSS compliance . Additionally you can use the link to the XHTML validator within the footer of each page. (CSS is identical for each page.)
Global2015 news feeds comply with the XML-based standards Atom (Atom Syndication Format) 1.0 by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and with the file format RSS (RDF Site Summary) 1.0, relying on the standard RDF by W3C. - XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language) 1.0 Strict (relying on XML [Extensible Markup Language] 1.0)
This page displayed by text browser Lynx
Browser or User Agent Compatibility
By its standard compliance mentioned above this website is usable with different browsers and other user agents (graphical browsers used by mouse or keyboard, text browsers, screen readers, etc.). Adaptations for specific browsers were only made within the limits set by web standards. Global2015 website was successfully tested for compatibility with the following browsers or user agents:
Graphical Browsers:
- Apple Safari 2.0.4
- Konqueror 3.2.3*
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0, 6.0 SP 1, 5.5*, 5.01*, 4.01**
- Mozilla Firefox 2.0, 1.5.0.7, 1.5, 1.0
- Mozilla Navigator 1.7.13, 1.7.0, 1.4, 1.3*, 1.0*
- Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.1, 1.0
- Netscape Navigator 9.0, 8.1.3, 8.02, 7.2, 7.1*, 7.0*, 4.75**, 4.6**
- Opera 9.2.1, 9.0, 8.52, 8.0*, 7.54*
* Some minor displaying issues.
** These old versions display only a strongly simplified layout. Previous versions of these browsers, as well as NCSA Mosaic 1-3, and Cello 1.0.1 (by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School), don't display the layout at all and only show linear black text, white or grey background, and sometimes not all the graphics.
Text Browsers:
- Lynx 2.8.3
Screen/Web Readers:
- Freedom Scientific JAWS 7.10
- Logox WebSpeech 4.0.
Trademarks are protected.
We hope to provide an easy and joyful use of our website to you.
Last modified: 2013-06-05
Address of this page (URI, URL): http://global2030.org/help.html
Photo credits: © Cavell L. Blood , Mourad Mokrane