Site Guide

The City and County of San Francisco recognizes its obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability civil rights laws to provide equal access to all City and County programs and activities.

The City and County of San Francisco has developed consistent and strategic guidelines and features for access to Web pages and services that appear on SFgov.org. These guidelines help ensure a positive user experience and easier accessibility by maintaining a consistent page layout, information architecture, and navigation structure.

Font Size

The latest versions of several web browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) allow users to easily increase the font size for better readability. Try holding down the Ctrl key (Command key on a Macintosh) and press the + (plus) key. You can also decrease the font size by holding down the Ctrl or Command key and pressing the - (minus) key.

For more information visit the SFGov Change Font Size page.

Get Viewers

There are many links throughout the City’s web pages to non-web files such as Adobe PDF, Adobe Flash, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. If you need to view these files but do not have the proper application to open these files, you may access these materials by downloading the necessary viewers.

Listen Now

The City uses a plugin provided by BrowseAloud to deliver high quality speech to assist those with dyslexia, literacy difficulties, mild visual impairments. The Listen Now features and options are accessed from an easy to use, floating toolbar. Each word is highlighted as it is read aloud and the sentence is highlighted in a contrasting color. This allows users to easily identify what text is being read aloud and navigate within and between web pages.

For more information please see the SFGov Listen Now Help Page.

Text Only

By pressing the Text only button, we show only text on a web page to provide our visitor the option of reading content without any additional styling.

Adherence to Web Standards

To the extent possible, this site is developed with Web standards in mind. We use proper Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML) to present information, which makes it possible for assistive technologies such as screen readers to read our content. We use proper headings to separate sections and sub-sections of our site for readability and proper structure. In addition we follow the Web Accessibility Guidelines adopted by the City and County of San Francisco.

More About Accessibility

For further information and to learn more about the regulations governing the City and County of San Francisco Web sites, Visit the SFGov Web Accessibility Web site.