Universal Web Accessibility Guidelines

More Complex Web Accessibility Tips

NAVIGATION

Maintain a simple, consistent page layout throughout your site.
A consistent design and look makes it easier for visitors to locate the specific information they seek. For example, a feature presented on every page, such as a standard navigation menu or logo for the site, should always appear in the same place. A carefully planned organizational scheme will help everyone use your site. A clear, consistent presentation will especially assist people with visual impairments or learning disabilities who have difficulty following disorganized presentations.

If there are many navigation links before the page content begins, provide a method to skip the navigation links to get to the main content. You can do this by placing a text or alt-tagged link at the top of the page which will take the user directly to the main content. This “Skip Navigation Links” link can be invisible. For those who use screen readers or other types of assistive technologies, this can avoid a tedious and time-consuming chore of going through all the standard navigational links before getting to the intended location.

FRAMES

Provide titles for each frame and title each frame page. Make sure that the frame name and titles are meaningful.

FORMS

Always place the text information for text entry fields and combo/select boxes to the left of (or above) of the control.
Always place the text information for checkboxes or radio buttons to the right of the object.
Or use markup, using the <label for> id= element and atrributes.
Use <fieldset> to group parts of the form to and caption the group with a <legend> tag.

For more detailed explanation of these tags and how to constuct accessible forms, see CNET's Webbuilder Form page; JimThatcher's Accessible Form Tutorial or WEBAim's How to Create Accessible Forms Tutorial.

PDFs

A PDF created by scanning a document will be totally inaccessible and will need to have an accessible text equivalent page posted.

A PDF form converted from Word or Pagemaker or Excel may be somewhat accessible, depending on the way it was created and which screen reader the user has. See the High Tech Center Training Unit training manual for Creating Accessible PDF Documents for information on how to make a PDF accessible.

If you upload a PDF document without providing it in an accessible or alternate format, please add a message to the student to see you if he or she needs the information in an accessible format.

Image Maps

All image maps should be client-side – NOT server-side [The only exception to this is if the regions “can’t be defined with an available geometric shape.”]
Use meaningful alt tags for the image and for each image-map area.
If you must use a server-side image map, have redundant text links for each active region and have your alt text for the image note that there is “Text navigation at bottom.”

CSS

Do not use any absolute units. Use percentages rather than pixels for width and position, including for <div> elements.
Make sure that markup order is linear.

[This Page still under construction -- More Information to be added soon]