Accessibility Standards
What is accessibility?
Developing an “accessible” website requires that all elements on the website can be accessed by anyone visiting your site. W3C director, Tim Berners-Lee, defines web accessibility as “access by everyone, regardless of disability.”
Disability Categories
There are 5 main disability categories. Understanding these categories will be helpful when developing your content:- Cognitive Learning
- Auditory
- Visual (including blind, low vision, and color blind)
- Motor/Physical
- Speech
Four Principles of Accessibility
The W3C website provides an overview of the Four Principles of Accessibility. These guidelines provide tips and suggestions to follow when creating a website
Perceivable
- Provide text alternatives for non-text content. The easiest way to do this is using the “alt” tag.
- Provide captions, transcripts, and other alternatives for multimedia.
- Create content that can be presented in different ways without losing meaning.
- Use methods that will make it easier for users to see and hear web content.
Operable
- Create pages so all functionality is available from a keyboard.
- Give users plenty of time to read and use content.
- Do not use content that may trigger seizures. Avoid producing any content that violates spatial pattern thresholds.
- Provide ways for users to find content, navigate and determine where they are within the site.
Understandable
- Make text content readable and understandable.
- Make content appear and operate in predictable ways.
- Help users avoid and correct mistakes. An example would be to hide any optional form fields.
Robust
- Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools.
- Avoid using any technologies that are not accessibility-supported when the technology is turned of or not supported.
Quick Tips for Accessibility
These Quick Tips provide a brief summary of the Web design concepts that support accessibility standards. For full guidelines and examples check out the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
- Images and animations: use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.
- Image maps: use the client-side map and text for hotspots.
- Multimedia: provide captioning and transcripts for audio, and descriptions of video.
- Hypertext links: use the text that makes sense when read out of context.
- Graphs and charts: Summarize graphs, charts, and tables using the longdesc attribute.
- Scripts, applets and plug-ins: provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.
- Tables: make line-by-line reading sensible. Be sure to summarize each table and use appropriate titles and descriptions.
- Check your work: use validation tools to make sure web content is accessible.