Sierra Services
for the Blind and Visually Impaired
offers full services, at no charge, to clients in the foothill communities of Nevada and Placer
Counties and beyond.
We
help blind and visually impaired individuals stay in their homes and out of institutions.
The use of layered Navigation Bars, each layer made of a table containing up to seven links to
other pages, to facilitate movement throughout the Site, has been developed over the last four
years. It is intended for use on Websites where functionality and loading speed are more
desirable than artistry.
The first layer Navigation Bar (B1), used on the HOME page, is uniform on all pages. Other bars
may vary from page to page, but are always identified by a number indicating their
sequence and a letter or two identifying the current link. If no link on the bar has been
selected, only the letter B and its sequence number will be displayed.
Jumping from a position on a lower layer to a higher one allows passing over previous downward
steps to the desired layer. Notice how, in this case, the opportunity to help a fine nonprofit
charitable organization with a donation is always present at the top of the screen on any page.
For users with limited, or no vision, knowing the links are always on the top of the page
allows use of the Ctrl + Home keys to find them. The first item on the home page (index)
offers users an opportunity to jump directly to Navigation Bar, "B3. IN", to view the Website
INTRODUCTION and if they wish, select DESCRIPTION, SITE MAP, or ARCHITECT to learn more about
the nature of the Website.
Additionally for limited vision users, whenever a comment might help, terse
comments which do not show on the screen are provided. Not many such comments are required
because as a friend of mine once said, "People who lose their eyesight do not get smarter
because of their loss, it just appears that way because they quickly learn to pay attention
to everything."
Unnecessary graphics are avoided in consideration of the majority of Internet users, who are
still confined to a dial-up service which may only be able to achieve a speed of half that
of their 56k modems.
The layout and design of this system is Copyright 2004, by Sierra Services for the Blind and
Visually Impaired. Anyone is licensed to use any part. It is anticipated those who do so will
make a suitable donation to Sierra Services.