As you write, edit and add content to your website we have tips and guidelines to make sure it's available to everyone.
What is Digital Accessibility?
Web accessibility is the practice of creating web content that is usable for individuals of all levels of ability, including those with:
- Low or severe vision impairment
- Colorblindness
- Deafness or hearing loss
- Impaired mobility
Accessibility is important, first and foremost, because it provides all users with the best web experience possible. In addition, we strive to remain in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines. Ensuring website accessibility is a priority for the Department of Justice and inaccessible websites are actionable by law.
Important Things to Remember About Accessibility for the Web
- A disability isn't always physical or cognitive. This means it doesn’t have to be a health condition; disabilities are mismatched human interactions.
- A disability doesn’t always have to be permanent.
- Disabilities are not always obvious, visible or disclosed to you.
You won’t always be able to know that someone has a disability.
It’s also important to remember that there can be different kinds of disabilities—they can be permanent, temporary or situational. For example, if you have a permanent disability as it relates to hearing, you might be deaf or using a cochlear implant; if you have a temporary disability, you may have an ear infection or have just gotten surgery that affects your hearing; if someone has a situational disability, they may be trying to access your content in a busy or high-noise area making it hard to hear sounds or cues on your website.
Ways to Ensure Your Site is Accessible
You Must Include an ‘ALT’ Text for Images
Alternative text, also known as an alt tag or alt text, gives someone with impaired vision additional context about the image on the screen. In your alt text, describe what is going on or what action might be taken here. Give enough detail that your description adds information to the content section the image represents.
Do Not Create Images with Embedded Text or Use Images as Buttons
Many websites are viewed on mobile devices. With smaller screen sizes, embedded text on images is hard to read. In addition, screen readers cannot determine if there is text on an image, so those using those assistive devices would miss out on the image's content.
Learn more about how to ensure your images are accessible.
Properly Use Headers
Headers not only make your page easier to scan and read, but it also helps with accessibility. Using headings in the correct order—e.g. H2, H3, H4—allows screen readers to accurately scroll through information on the page.
For more information on this, see our Writing for the Web section.
Ensure You Are Using the Correct Colors
Poor color contrast, or the use of color alone to convey information, can create issues for users with visual disabilities such as low vision, color blindness or those who are using a computer in bright lighting.
Our templates for our case.edu are created with accessibility in mind. This means that everything down to the color and size of the font on the webpage has been and is continually monitored for digital accessibility compliance. In order to take advantage of this template, you must be sure that you are pasting as plain text when you’re working on your CWRU website.
This will help keep you from inadvertently adding in colors or typefaces that create accessibility issues.
Learn more about pasting with plain text and adding/removing formatting within Drupal.