Accessible Content

Are all your headers in the correct reading order?
  • Visitors using a screen reader can use a hotkey to bring up a list of all the headings on the page and choose to skip to a section. As you can imagine, hierarchy becomes important in these cases.
  • You want your most important sections to be an h2.
  • Do not skip heading levels. Don't jump from h2 to h4, for example. Listeners will likely never reach h4 headings if no h3 headings exist
  • Do not use headings to style text. Use 鈥渟tyles鈥� and font attributes such as bold and italics.
Is your link text descriptive?

No 鈥渃lick here鈥� and 鈥渕ore info鈥�. Good links are descriptive, unique and use keywords.

  • 笔辞辞谤:听Check outthis page on web accessibility.
    (this link text does not explain what the information is or where the user is going when they click on it)
  • 骋辞辞诲:听This article on Wikipedia will help you learn about basic web accessibility.
    (this link text is more informative but it could be better.)
  • Best:聽Find out more by reading the web accessibility Wikipedia page.
    (this link text is best because it explains what information the reader will access and where they are going to get it.)
There is no content in all caps except for acronyms?

Some screen readers read content in all caps by spelling out each letter. It is better to not use all caps. Draw attention to content by using 鈥渟tyles鈥� and font attributes such as bold and italics. You can event highlight content by using the icon, button, or box shortcodes.

Are you using table correctly?

Do not use tables to style or format the layout of your content. Use tables for tabular data only.

  • Keep in mind that screen readers read across table rows. This can cause difficulty if the table was designed to be read differently
  • Avoid sub headings and cells that span more than one column or row
Lists have been made with list icon

Lists are great from an accessibility standpoint because they provide structured order to content in a linear fashion. Lists are recommended as potential replacements for simple tables, as tables can be more difficult to navigate and sometimes we provide info in tables that really would be better suited to lists. The basic question you should ask yourself: do you need rows and columns? Do you need some kind of cross-referencing and/or sortable on different properties of the individual items? In that case, use a table. Otherwise, use an unordered (or ordered) list.

Images and Media

Have you added meaningful alt text to all images?
  • The text editor interface makes creating content pages easy. Includes styling and formatting tools like
  • expandable content, grids and columns to streamline content and give you flexible page layouts.Keep it simple 鈥揼enerally just a sentence will do
  • Think like a Tweet -succinctlyexplain or describe image
  • Approach -The main question you should ask yourself is, 鈥淲hy is this image used? What message is it supposed to convey?鈥� Once you understand that, then alt-text writing will be easy
  • There is no need to say 鈥減hoto/image of 鈥︹�� because it is implied
Have you separated text from images, i.e. you do not have any content embedded in images.

If you have an image with text embedded in it, include relevant information in the alt text. All non-text content that is presented to the user must have a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose.

Do videos have closed captioning?

Make sure that the videos you embed in your website have closed captioning. Although captions are considered time consuming to implement, it is helpful to remember that many individuals besides a deaf or hard of hearing audiences can benefit from captions. These include:

  • anyone with defective computer audio
  • students needing to learn new terminology or
  • those whose first language is not English
  • viewers in a noisy room or with a sleeping roommate