According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, websites of public universities must comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 level AA standards. This ensures that content is accessible to people with disabilities including blindness/low vision, color blindness, movement limitations, learning disabilities, and others.
There are several things you should keep in mind when populating website content:
- Put headers in order. H1 is only for the page title. H2-H6 are meant to go in a hierarchy to make it easier for screen readers to skip between sections and indicated which content is related.
- Do not embed text in images. Text in diagrams or graphics cannot be read by screen readers. A small amount of text such as a headline can be transcribed into alt text, but the more text you have in your image, the less accessible it is.
- Make sure that all images, videos, and other non-text content have a text alternative (e.g. alt text or longdesc). The text should convey meaningful information that helps a user who cannot see the image understand what it is.
- Avoid setting specific font colors and sizes. Users need to be able to manipulate color and size in browser displays to make it more accessible to them, and dictating those settings often makes this impossible. Further, color contrast must be above a certain level between text and background to make it accessible, and changing either one can cause your content to be non-compliant. The Mercury theme formats content appropriately and accessibly according to whether it is a paragraph, list bullet, header, or other content element, and also provides text and background colors that fall within the approved UF branding guidelines.
- Avoid using “click here” or generic phrases, as well as full URLs, for link text. Generic phrases can be confusing when read by a screen reader out of context, and full URLs are read aloud by a screen reader. Instead, use brief yet unique and meaningful link text like “Register for the cybersecurity talk” whenever possible.
- Rethink uploading a PDF. PDFs have been a common way of sharing web-based documents in the past, but they were developed for print and are notoriously difficult to make completely accessible. Consider using a Word document or better yet, putting the content in a web page.
If you have questions about whether your content is accessible or need assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Accessibility Tools
SiteImprove
SiteImprove is a cloud-based product that automatically identifies SEO, accessibility, usability and quality assurance issues on UF websites, including:
- Areas where content or site design does not fulfill accessibility requirements
- Broken links
- Misspellings
- Media files that have not been updated recently
- Images larger than 1MB
And many other possible issues. Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering has an account with UF’s instance of SiteImprove. To gain access to reports for your website, contact the webmaster.
SensusAccess
SensusAccess is a document conversion system that converts documents into accessible formats. SensusAccess is available to UF students, staff, and faculty.
For best results when converting to tagged PDF, use the “image over text” document type.
- Use SensusAccess (requires GatorLink login)
More Accessibility Resources
- UF website accessibility guidelines
- Read the full WCAG standard
- Accessibility toolkit from ada.gov
- WAVE: Web Accessibility Evaluation tool
- Microsoft Support: Create accessible documents and PDFs