Website Accessibility

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.

Quick tips for making web content accessible

• Use alt text on images: Any image that is not purely decorative needs a text alternative that helps a user who cannot see the image understand what it is. Meaningful alt text describes the image and shows any text contained within the image. Complex images (such as diagrams or infographics) should be fully described, with brief alt text referring users to a complete description in the longdesc/description attribute or within the web page.
• Use meaningful text in links: Generic phrases such as “click here” 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.
• Keep default colors and sizes for fonts: Color contrast must be within certain ranges to be accessible. Users also need to be able to manipulate color and size in browser displays to make it easier for them to access.
• 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.
• Check formatting when copy/pasting from documents into web pages: Some accessibility issues happen when unwanted code is pasted in from external documents. If this is a problem, paste into a plain text editor such as Notepad first, then format in WordPress.
• Watch for empty headings: This accessibility issue can be caused by hitting “Enter” to add vertical space to a page. Instead, use the Spacer block.
• 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.

Accessibility tools and resources

Accessibility one-pager for Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering faculty and staff