The City of Fort Myers is committed to facilitating the accessibility and usability of its Website, cityftmyers.com, for all people with disabilities. If you use assistive technology (such as a Braille reader, a screen reader, or TTY) and the format of any material on this website interferes with your ability to access information, please contact us. If you do encounter an accessibility issue, please be sure to specify the Web page in your email, and we will make all reasonable efforts to make the page accessible for you. Users who need accessibility assistance can also contact us by phone through the Federal Information Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339 for TTY/Voice communication. Our Website will be reviewed and tested on an ongoing basis, utilizing assistive technologies by users who have knowledge of and depend on the performance of these technologies.

Browser Accessibility Information

Many popular browsers contain built-in accessibility tools.

• Internet Explorer Accessibility Information
• Firefox Accessibility Information
• Chrome Accessibility Information

Additional Plug-ins

Adobe Reader is required to view and print PDF documents that appear on this website.

• To download this program for free, visit the Adobe website.
• To read PDF documents with a screen reader, please visit the Adobe Reader Accessibility website which provides useful tools and resources.

Supported Accessibility Technology

• Latest Version of JAWS for Windows
• Latest Version of NVDA for Windows
• Latest Version of VoiceOver for Mac OS X
• Keyboard-Only Navigation

Overview

In keeping with its public service commitments, and its obligations under the ADA, the City of Fort Myers will ensure that its media is accessible to people who have visual, hearing, motor or cognitive impairments.

Accessibility is a partnership between site producers like the City of Fort Myers and the creators of the operating system, browser, and specialist assistive technologies which many accessible users employ to allow them, for example, to view websites in easier-to-read colors, with larger fonts, or as spoken text. For more information please contact the ITS Department’s support services by email.

City of Fort Myers Online Accessibility Standards

All City of Fort Myers online sites must comply with a growing body of accessibility standards across commissioning, editorial, design and coding. Links to these standards can be found at: Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities.

1. Statement of Commitment

• (1.1) The City of Fort Myers is committed to making its output as accessible as possible to all audiences (including those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments) to fulfill its public service mandate and to meet its statutory obligations defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• (1.2) Unless it can be shown to be technically or practically impossible, all content must be made accessible through accessibility best practices or available upon request.

2. Scope

• (2.1) These standards relate to all public facing City of Fort Myers websites.

3. Content

• (3.1) You must provide an accessible alternative to any potentially inaccessible content, including all plug-in content, unless this can be proven to be technically or practically impossible.
• (3.2) An accessible alternative is defined as one that meets the information, educational, and entertainment objectives of the original content.
• (3.3) If your content relies on Flash or other plug-ins, you must provide an HTML alternative that does not rely on Flash, other plug-ins or JavaScript.
• (3.4) All content and features delivered using JavaScript must be accessible with JavaScript switched off. See JavaScript Standards.
• (3.5) You should divide large blocks of information into manageable chunks such as using short paragraphs.
• (3.6) Lines should not be longer than 70 characters, for the browser default font setting, including the spaces in between words.
• (3.7) You should specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs such as Information Technology Services (ITS).
• (3.8) You should use HTML text rather than images wherever possible.
• (3.9) When using buttons, such as in forms, you must use HTML text buttons rather than images unless you have an existing exemption for use of a non-standard font or where the button is a recognized icon.
• (3.10) Information must not be conveyed by relying solely on sensory characteristics of components such as color, shape, size, visual location, orientation, or sound.
• (3.11) Users should be notified if their browser is outdated, or does not a specific component for viewing content.

4. Images

• (4.1) Content must make sense without reference to images or diagrams, unless the subject matter can only be displayed via images.
• (4.2) You may support instructions with diagrams.
• (4.3) Where appropriate, you should use pictures and symbols in addition to text.
• (4.4) You should support your "calls to action" with icons.

5. Structure, Function & Layout

• (5.1) You must provide consistent navigation.
• (5.2) You must clearly define the different sections of the page and ensure consistent location of screen objects.
• (5.3) All text based content should be published on a plain solid background.
• (5.4) You must not break browser back button functionality.
• (5.5) Pop-ups must not appear without being intentionally opened by the user.

6. Movement

• (6.1) You must not cause an item on the screen to flicker.
• (6.2) You must not use blinking, flickering, or flashing objects.
• (6.3) You must provide a mechanism to freeze any movement on the page unless there is no alternative to the movement.

7. Meetings Audio/Video

• (7.1) Meeting minutes are available upon request to the Public Records Specialist in the City Clerk’s Office.

8. Frames

• (8.1) You must describe the purpose of frames and how they relate to each other if this is not obvious using the frame titles alone.
• (8.2) You must notify a user if their browser does not support frames.

9. Forms

• (9.1) Forms must be navigable using the keyboard. In particular, you should beware of putting on change instructions on a select box (dropdown list) using Javascript.
• (9.2) You must provide a submit button for all forms. You may use an image to perform this function but if you do you must provide alt text for this image.

10. Documents

• (10.1) All downloadable documents including PDFs must be made available in alternative accessible formats, either HTML or Text.
• (10.2) All PDFs should comply with the PDF Accessibility Guidelines when possible.

11. Links

• (11.1) The City of Fort Myers is not responsible for the content or accessibility of 3rd party sites outside the control of the City of Fort Myers.
• (11.2) Links should be clearly identified and accessible by keyboards and other assistive technology.

12. Accessibility Options

• (12.1) Page layout must accommodate the enlarging of text. Users must be able to resize text, with the exception of captions and images of text, by 200% without the use of assistive technologies.
• (12.2) You must use style sheets to control layout and presentation.
• (12.3) You must not use tables for non-tabular data/content, or presentational markup such as font tags. For more on this see Semantic Mark-up Standards.