At Yale University and the library we strive to follow the AA standards of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. [1] Making your web site accessible means your online resource is usable by the widest variety of people possible, including those who use screen readers, cannot use a mouse, or who may be on a slow wireless connection. The User Experience group recommends library web site and subject guide creators review the guidelines listed here so that you understand the major components of web accessibility. Following basic accessibility guidelines will ensure that your web site is coded accurately for meaning and that it will be rendered well in a variety of formats.
When you create an individual web site or subject guide you use tools (Yale's Drupal service and Libguides), which when used correctly will produce highly accessible pages. Simply using the color schemes defined in the library's YaleSites and Libguides implementation, and following the system prompts when creating pages and forms will ensure a high-level of accessibility. You can use the simple checklist provided here to ensure that you have not introduced any inaccessible elements.
What follows is a brief guide to help with some of the most important accessibility rules. If you are creating a more complex web resource you should contact the UX Group [2] for a more in-depth review.
A sighted user of a web page can quickly scan the entire page. Someone using a screen reader will hear a linear rendering of the page, one part at a time. Semantic markup is an important part of making the screen reader translation meaningful. You want to insure that the flow of the page as rendered in a reader will make sense, and present the page in a way that enables someone using a screen reader to quickly move through all the content, choosing that content they are interested in.
These guidelines were adapted from Webaim Checklist. [5]
Test the color contrast using the Web AIM Color Contrast Checker [6] or Check My Colours [7].
Make sure all images and form buttons have associated descriptive text. Screen reader technology cannot automatically convey the meaning of an image. The ALT attribute is used for this purpose, and the creator must provide this information. The ALT attribute information is also used when an image cannot be displayed properly. If you wonder if you need to add information in the ALT attribute, or what information to put there, ask yourself “What text would I provide if I did not have this image or the image was missing?” A full explanation of uses of ALT attribute is provided by Webaim.org [8]
When inserting video or audio files on your online resource you must
These guidelines were adapted from Webaim Checklist. [5]
The purpose and ultimate destination of links must be clear from the text of the link itself or the link text and the text immediately around it.
Many of the following form accessibility guidelines are taken care of automatically when using YaleSites forms.
Test the form by moving through it with the keyboard only (do not use the mouse). You should not get stuck in any one element and should be able to move from one entry to the next. In YaleSites, this should not be a problem.
These guidelines were adapted from Webaim Checklist. [5]
Using YaleSites and LibGuides as designed should ensure that your web page is accessibility. When you create a web page using one of these resources check that
Links
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
[2] mailto:kathleen.bauer@yale.edu?subject=Accessibility%20questions
[3] http://wave.webaim.org/report#/web.library.yale.edu
[4] http://www.nvaccess.org/
[5] http://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist
[6] http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
[7] http://www.checkmycolours.com/
[8] http://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/
[9] http://wave.webaim.org/
[10] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/accessibility
[11] https://addons.mozilla.org/En-US/firefox/addon/juicy-studio-accessibility-too/?src=search