Accessibility

Accessibility statement

The Salapaka Lab is committed to making this website accessible to all visitors, including those using assistive technologies, keyboards without a pointing device, screen magnification, or voice control. This statement describes our conformance target, known issues, and how to report barriers.

Conformance target

This site aims to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the standard adopted by the US Access Board's Section 508 Refresh (2018) and referenced by the University of Minnesota's Digital Accessibility Standard. As a state-university lab website, we also aim to meet the applicable requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Measures we take

  • Semantic HTML with proper landmark regions (header, nav, main, footer) on every page
  • Skip-to-main-content link, visible on focus
  • Visible focus indicators meeting minimum contrast requirements on every interactive element
  • Keyboard-operable navigation, including the mobile menu (implemented as a native disclosure requiring no JavaScript)
  • Language attribute set on the root element
  • Reduced motion preferences respected via prefers-reduced-motion
  • Filter chips implemented with role="group" and aria-pressed per WAI-ARIA authoring practices
  • Dynamic filter changes announced via aria-live regions
  • Descriptive page titles and metadata unique to each page
  • Content collections require alt text on every image field by schema

Known issues

The site is under active development. Known areas we're still addressing:

  • Alt text on some migrated images (headshots, area hero images) is generic and will be refined.
  • PDF documents linked from person pages (theses) and publication pages have not been individually checked for accessibility tagging.
  • A full manual keyboard and screen-reader audit (VoiceOver, NVDA) is planned before launch cutover.
  • Third-party or externally-hosted content linked from the site is beyond our direct control.

Reporting a barrier

If you encounter a barrier or have a suggestion for improving accessibility on this site, please email murtis@umn.edu with the subject line "Accessibility feedback." Please include the URL you were visiting and a description of the issue. We aim to respond within five business days.

Formal complaint

For unresolved accessibility issues, you can also contact the University of Minnesota's Digital Accessibility office through the UMN Accessibility website.