Career Connect ADA Features

The Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership (The Partnership) uses Career Connect to track participant-level eligibility and outcomes data for LWIA 7 WIOA Title I customers and for the non-WIOA funded workforce programs that it administers. It is a web-based system accessed by staff of The Partnership and its contracted service providers. Career Connect is hosted and maintained by Geographic Solutions, Inc. on their Virtual One-Stop (VOS) platform. VOS has been reviewed and redesigned to meet or exceed the requirements of the United States Government’s Section 508 standards of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as well as to the accessibility standards of W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

 Current accessibility features include:

• Keyboard shortcuts - Key combinations of Alt+1 and the enter key will access the skip to main content link. Alt+2 and the enter key will access the skip to footer link giving quick navigation to the bottom of the page navigation. Alt+3 and enter key accesses the page preferences pop up. Note that some browsers recognize the short cut keys as Alt+Shift+Assigned Key. The screen reader will state what the browsers key combination are to access the link. These links are also accessible by tabbing into the page. The skip to main content and skip to footer links will be at the top of the page for quick navigation of the page.
• Alternative text and descriptions for images - Additional descriptive text is used to assist the user to understand the context of a link or image. These are in the forms of a tooltip and alternative text (alt-text). Alt-text is a required web accessibility feature for all images. If no alt-text is provided the screen reader will only state the file name for the image which is not descriptive. For users who use web browsers in text mode only the alt-text of the image will be in place of the actual image. Images used as spacers or blank have the alt-text set to null or empty.
• Usability with alternative computer technology - The site is tested for usability with screen reader technologies like JAWS with use on popular web browsers.
• Clear and simple language - The site makes use of clear and simple text language. The use of grouped items with headings, listings and paragraphs pertaining to the sections is clearly marked. All form text boxes have associated labels describing what the text box input field is requiring. Non-layout tables contain a summary of the table's headers that explain what is being displayed in the table. Each page has a unique and distinguishing title that is displayed in the browser's title bar and at the top of the page's informational section.
• The use of the WAI-ARIA markup for screen readers. WAI-ARIA stands for Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications.
• Logical and consistent navigation:
• Hyperlinks are described with meaningful location text. Links that open in another window states, "This link opens a new window."
• Navigation between pages (horizontal navigation) - Forms that require multiple steps can be navigated using the back and next buttons located at the end of the input fields for the page. Additional buttons at the top of the page, as well as, the footer of the page allow the user to move to other sections of the site or to contact staff for assistance.
• Navigation within a page (vertical navigation) - Some of our pages will include top and/or bottom links to navigate within the page. The shortcut links mentioned in the section for keyboard shortcuts are also available to navigate within the page.
• Hidden headers can be used to navigate the site. The JAWS shortcut key is Insert + F6. This brings up a listing of all the headings on the page.