Who is responsible for content accessibility?
Any staff, faculty or student worker who is designated to manage, create and/or update content for their department or unit is responsible for following the IT Accessibility Regulations.
Guidelines for Content Providers
The following guidelines help content providers prepare accessible content.
- Provide meaningful descriptions of any images:
- Develop alternative text (Alt text) for all meaningful images. Alt text is not a caption. Appropriate Alt text is a short description of an image that a screen reader can access and "read" to individuals who have visual impairments. Without Alt text, these individuals will miss the image and its meaning.
- Describe complex images in the page content. For complex images, Alt text may not be sufficient information. Instead, a long description, or longdesc, can direct site visitors to another webpage that explains the complicated image in greater detail.
- Summarize graphs and charts which are inserted as images. Be sure captions explain their purpose and provide a description of why the graph or chart is important and what it conveys.
- Organize and structure content to help users navigate the page, determine where they are, and find the information they want.
- Keep navigation consistent.
- Break content into sections and lists with understandable headings.
- Use heading styles such as H1, H2, H3, etc. and paragraph styles, instead of different font sizes, to indicate structure and hierarchy.
- Use concise and logical text. This can save time and eliminate frustration for screen reader users. . Make link text clear, consistent and descriptive.
- Use link text that describes where the link goes. For example, rather than "click here" or “read more,” use descriptive text for links, such as "explore our social programs." This allows site visitors to know where they are being directed. Best practice would be to use the name of the page you are going to.
- Within a particular page, avoid using the same text for links that go to different locations.
- Keep link text precise. Lengthy descriptions may make it difficult for site visitors to understand where they are being directed. A good rule of thumb is to select a few words that, even when taken out of context, best describe your link.
- Provide transcripts for all audio, including for videos that contain audio. The transcript must be available for those who are deaf or hard of hearing and is helpful for those with cognitive disabilities.
- Include closed captions as part of all video content. Captioning ensures that deaf or hearing impaired individuals can access the video.
- Don't use color as the only way to convey meaning. The classic example is a green button for "go" and a red button for "stop." A colorblind individual may not be able to distinguish the buttons, and a screen reader can't interpret the colors. To remedy this situation, use shapes or text to distinguish buttons, and provide Alt text that can be read by the screen reader.
- Create tables that can be understood when read line-by-line. Screen readers read tables row by row. Providing table headers will allow site visitors to better understand table content. Avoid using complex tables; instead, use several simple tables with the same information.
If you need assistance with web accessibility, contact itaccessibility@tamu.edu.