Summary
General Document guidance for Accessible Images, Hyperlinks, Color Contrast, Optimizing Writing, Headings, Lists, Columns, and Tables.
Body
- All electronics must be accessible via keyboard (motor disabilities) and not require use of a mouse.
- Information should not be conveyed through color alone.
- High contrast colors should be used.
- Multimedia must provide information to users in a different format (captions, audio transcripts, picture descriptions, etc.)
- Accessibility is not an absolute, documents are not strictly accessible or inaccessible
- The goal is to make a document as accessible to as many users as possible.
- Content must follow the four principles and be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR).
- Perceivable – content can be recognized regardless of user disability.
- Operable – document content and functionality (links) must be easy to navigate and interact with.
- Understandable – content is readable, legible, and consistent to aid in user interpretation and mental processing.
- Robust – the content and functionality work hand in hand with assistive technologies (screen readers).
- There are thirteen guidelines that these principles must follow. These guidelines are measured through success criteria.
- Success criteria are categorized as Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.
- If documents don't meet Level A, many users are unable to access content.
- If documents don't meet Level AA, many users will face heavy frustration and difficulties accessing the content.
- Meeting requirements for Levels A and AA is considered the standard measure according to accessibility laws.
- Level AAA provides some enhancements to be more accessible, but not all enhancements may be possible or appropriate.
- Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in documents gives the user the ability to change font, font size, line height, increase size of clickable areas and adjust colors.
- Provide definitions and explanations of unusual terms or acronyms.
- Provide alternatives or avoid nonliteral text and colloquialisms.
- Keep pages consistent.
- Highlight important or urgent information.
- Reduce clutter and extra material.
- Images are non-text content such as pictures, icons, and charts.
- Alternative text – text that is equivalent to an image that has content or a function in a document.
- Alternative text can be added by placing document text near the image describing the information the image provides, or text attached to the image itself (Alt Text).
- Alt text is read by screen reading software when added correctly.
- Alt text should be short and succinct.
- Alt Text should not restate nearby text or be redundant
- Alt text should avoid phrases like "graphic of" or "image of".
- When adding alt text, you should ask what the function of the image is and if you were to remove it what text you would add instead.
- To add alt text, right click an image and select "edit alt text" and type your text in.
- Automatically generated descriptions are not equal to an image's content and should be changed.
- When an image is decorative, right click on the image, hit "edit alt text" and hit the "mark as decorative" box.
- When an image acts as a link you don't need to mark it as such, as screen readers will mark it as a link.
- Emojis already have proper alt text attached.
- Icons do not have proper alt text and should be fixed
- When using smart art be sure to edit alt text to describe the information in the graphic.
- Describe the type of graphic, the number of steps, and the information on each step.
- Charts often have too much data to put in an alt text field.
- State the title of the cart, the type of chart, and a summary of what the chart is describing.
- Link to the chart's data in an appendix, structured into a table or use headings and lists.
- The only wrap text style that is recognizable by screen reading software is "inline with text" (the default setting).
- The "check accessibility" tool in word helps to catch this.
- After creating a document with images, it is good to use the check accessibility tool to double check that all of your images have alt text or are marked as decorative.
- Linked text should be descriptive, concise, unique, and visually distinct.
- Ambiguous linked text makes it difficult to determine its function without context.
- Links with a large amount of text can be hard to understand.
- Present just a few key words as the linked text for simplicity.
- When providing URLs, present them as normal, not linked, text and create a link with new text.
- Make linked text visually clear (use a contrasting color and keep text underlined)
- Only underline links, not any other text
- Poor color contrast impacts all users, but especially those with low vision, color blindness, and reading disabilities.
- Review contrast issues with the "check accessibility" tool.
- Use third party software like "Color Contrast Analyzer" to fully check contrast issues as the "check accessibility" tool may miss some issues.
- WCAG Level AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4:5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for larger text.
- Contrast issues are more prevalent in PowerPoint presentations.
- The check accessibility tool in PowerPoint is very flawed.
- It doesn’t catch color contrast issues, meaning use of a third-party contrast checker is required.
- Don't rely only on color to convey information.
- You can still use color to differentiate categories, but it cannot be the only thing doing so.
- Screen reading software does not state colors.
- This is what relying only on color looks like.
Here is a list of my cats and dogs! Cats are listed in blue, and dogs are listed in red.
- Pepper
- Mabel
- Blizzard
- Ridley
This is much better.
Here is a list of my cats and dogs!
My Cats
My Dogs
Similarly, don't rely on formatting differences like bolded or italicized text to differentiate material.
- Simple and clear writing is vital.
- Content should be understood the first time it is read or heard.
- Use plain language.
- Write for your audience (keep the audience’s understanding/vocabulary in mind).
- Focus on the most important information.
- Only use complex terms when necessary.
- Use active verbs and personal pronouns.
- Explain acronyms and abbreviations.
- Use proper spelling and punctuation.
- Use spelling and grammar checks while typing.
- Make sure the language is set correctly in Word. This not only helps with proofing but is vital to screen readers pronouncing words correctly.
- Word has a readability statistics tool.
- Hit the review tab and then hit editor to find the statistics.
- This allows you to check the readability score for clarity.
- Reformat longer sentences to break them up into shorter sentences when possible.
- The Flesch Reading Ease score ranges from 0 to 100. You should review if your score is less than 50.
- You should review your document if your Flesch-Kincade Grade Level score is less than 8.
- Increase the use of active voice sentences if your passive voice score is less than 20%.
- The Hemingway app is helpful in restructuring to aid readability. This is found at hemingwayapp.com.
- Use fonts like Calibri or Times New Roman for better legibility.
- Word files should have a text size of at least 11 and PowerPoints should have text as large as the slide will allow without compromising line spacing or format.
- Limit the amount of text on PowerPoint slides.
- Italics, text justification, underlining, and contrast may impact legibility.
- Avoid large chunks of italicized text.
- Justified text can cause spacing issues between text that make it difficult to read. Left aligned text is generally the most legible.
- It's best to only use underlined text when there is linked content.
- Underlining non-linked text may cause confusion.
- Between 60 to 100 characters per line of text is best.
- Heading formatting and structure is one of the most important accessibility components in a document.
- Headings allow for easy navigation.
- Heading levels are important and should be used in order (don’t skip a heading 3 before using heading 4).
- Heading 1 is a main heading, heading 2 is a main section heading, heading 3 is a subsection heading, and heading 4 is a sub subsection heading
- Screen reading software reads the heading name and what level it is.
- Headings can be viewed by hitting the "view" tab and checking the "navigation pane" check box.
- Adding a table of contents to large documents is extremely helpful.
- This is done by going to the "references" tab and hitting the "table of contents" tool. This allows you to choose preset tables.
- These tables need to be updated if you add more headings or page numbers change.
- You update them in Word by going to the references tab and hitting the “update table” button.
- Follow all general accessibility rules for Word documents for PowerPoints.
- It's best to choose a theme as early as possible.
- Choose a theme with good visibility and contrast.
- Tile slides with unique, descriptive titles that aid in navigation.
- The "slide master" tool (found in the "view" tab) lets you create custom layouts.
- Screen readers read content in the order of title placeholder first, then other placeholders, then any added objects like pictures.
- To adjust reading order, go to the home tab, then hit the "arrange" tool, then choose "selection pane".
- Reading order is listed from bottom to top.
- Select and drag items to adjust their order.
- Transitions and animations can be confusing and distracting.
- When multimedia is used in presentations, text-based equivalent info must be provided.
- This means using captions for video and transcripts for audio.
- Visual space created by using lists helps with comprehension of information.
- Use numbered lists when there is a hierarchy of information and bulleted lists when there isn't.
- Ask yourself if the order of information matters.
- A list of ingredients would be a bulleted list while a sequence of steps would be a numbered list.
- When using lists with multiple levels, make sure that you are using different types of bullets for every level.
- Notice how this bullet is different?
- This bullet is different too!
- Using different bullet types audibly lets screen reader users know that there are sub points.
- This rule should be followed for any type of document of presentation.
- Columns must be created correctly for screen readers to read them correctly.
- Do NOT create columns by hitting the tab key or space key.
- To create columns on Word, go to the "layout" tab and hit the "columns" tool and choose the number of columns you want.
- You can customize columns further by hitting the "more columns" option.
- When creating columns in PowerPoint, select the text you want to format, go to "columns" on the home tab and select the number of columns you want.
- Tables should have proper headings for rows and columns.
- Use built-in styles to identify header in the table's first row and / or column.
- When a table is selected the "table design" and "layout" tabs will appear at the top.
- Use the "table design" tab to identify where the headers are.
- Choosing a table style that clearly marks where the headings are is extremely important (consider contrast).
This is an example of a table with no contrast for its headings.
This is an example of a table with properly contrasted headings.
- If you are going to use color to contrast headings, make sure the text to background contrast is still high.
- For instance, on this example the column heading cells have a dark background so the text within those cells is white, instead of black like the rest of the table text.