What Is Accessibility?
“Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed.” (Source: Wikipedia).
Accessibility in Usage
- Tools approved for use on campus through ITS Software Review Policy have been reviewed by Accessibility & Disability Resources
- Think through what makes the most sense for you and your students, and adapt as needed
- Assistive Technology team on campus can help you navigate questions and test out options
Accessibility in Content
- Text and multimedia
- Break up walls of text.
- Provide text alternatives to multimedia content (alternative text, a.k.a. alt text, for images, captions or transcripts for videos), and ensure accessibility of other external files (such as PDFs)
- Create links that make sense out of context (avoid “click here”).
- Layout and structure
- Ensure a logical document/page structure. (For example, make sure to nest your headings correctly: H2 > H3 > H4.)
- Use tables only for tabular data, not for page layout.
- Design and styling
- Consider your use of color (color contrasts, colors that are too bright, colors conveying meaning…).
- Consider the legibility of your typeface and font size.
Check Your Work
- For a general web accessibility check: WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (rundown of accessibility errors, color contrast errors, alerts for things that could potentially use improvement, highlights the accessibility features that have been used correctly)
- For color contrast: WebAim’s Contrast Checker lets you input color hex codes and tells you whether a particular combination has a high enough contrast for legibility
- For colorblindness: Toptal lets you input a site URL and shows you how your site looks to users with different types of colorblindness
