Web Accessibility

Ensuring people of all abilities have equal access to web content Disability Discrimination Act – Web Access Advisory notes 2010 Required by law (2006) in the USA Required for Government Websites in Australia by end of 2014 Important for good web practice, SEO, and equal access What is Web Accessibility

A policy of the Department of Finance for all Government Websites Mandates conformance with WCAG 2.0 AA standard by 31 Dec 2014 The what?... Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.0, level AA Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy for Government Websites

4 Principles – Web content must be: Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust WCAG 2.0 Summary

Principle 1 - Perceivable Provide text alternatives for non-text content. Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia. Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning. Make it easier for users to see and hear content. WCAG 2.0 Summary

Principle 2 – Operable Make all functionality available from a keyboard. Give users enough time to read and use content. Do not use content that causes seizures. Help users navigate and find content. WCAG 2.0 Summary

Principle 3 – Understandable Make text readable and understandable. Make content appear and operate in predictable ways. Help users avoid and correct mistakes. WCAG 2.0 Summary

Principle 4 – Robust Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools. WCAG 2.0 Summary

Alt Text Alt text: “Getting to Uni” Alt text: “Student looking through microscope”

Text Alignment ✗✗✓

Heading Structure

To download the campus map click here. Download the campus map. ✓ Link Text ✗

HTML is the most accessible format Word or Rich Text documents are also acceptable PDFs cause problems!! Use with caution. Refer to web resources for making PDFs accessible, OR provide a Word or HTML alternative. Accessible Documents

To be accessible a video must be captioned or have a transcript available in an accessible format Captions must not be “burnt in” to the video, but be available using a closed captioning service, such as provided by YouTube. YouTube can help with this!! Video Captioning

Add Alt Text to Images Align text Left-justified Structure web pages and documents logically Use meaningful link text Use HTML first, then Word Documents, lastly PDFs Caption all videos AVOID EMBEDDING FLASH ELEMENTS!! Summary

Web Services Unit: uws.edu.au/wsuuws.edu.au/wsu Google “WCAG 2.0” or “Web Accessibility Checklist” Resources

Questions

Web Accessibility