Accessibility guidelines
What do we mean by 'accessible'?
Accessible web pages deliver content and services to people both with and
without disabilities, on as equal terms as possible. A range of techniques are
used to ensure that disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness
and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited
movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these, are
not a barrier to use of the web.
Why?
- Most people will be affected by some form of disability at some stage in their life.
- Accessible pages work well for everyone, so ensure your pages are easy to read and navigate. In particular, users
with older, slower computers and smaller screens benefit from accessible web content.
- Legal requirements: all UK university websites must be accessible to disabled users. (See also:
the University's guidance on the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).)
- All University of Essex websites must comply with the minimum
requirements for accessibility set out in this guide.
For further information and support, please contact
WEDM.
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Minimum requirements for accessible web pages
All University websites should meet the following requirements. This
information is also available separately as part of the
accessibility check-list which you can print out for easy reference.
Please note: these guidelines are intended to cover most
day-to-day web authoring issues; authors of specialised sites using advanced
techniques should check the World Wide Web
Consortium Accessibility site for guidance.
| Points to check |
Does your site comply? |
| Provide alternative text for every
non-text element on a web page, including images, image map regions, audio,
video and multimedia. |
|
| Stylesheets are
the preferred method of controlling
formatting and layout; web pages should also be readable without the
stylesheets. |
|
| Ensure that all information conveyed with
colour is also available without colour. |
|
| Ensure that there is sufficient contrast
between text and background colours, both for those with standard colour
vision and the colour blind. |
|
| Use a consistent
approach to navigation, page titles,
layout and
other forms of presentation. |
|
| Ensure that
document structure and correct reading sequence can be automatically
determined. |
|
| Do not use scrolling text
or
other dynamic or moving content which may be hard to read; where necessary, provide
text alternatives and keep these up to date when dynamic content changes. |
|
| Avoid any technique which may produce
flickering effects on-screen. |
|
| Use the clearest and simplest language
appropriate for a site's content; identify
the natural language of the page. |
|
| Tables containing data should contain
clear row and column headers. |
|
| Do not use frames. |
|
| If you use applets,
scripts or plug-ins, your site
should still be navigable and should not lose any content when these
are turned off or not supported. |
|
| Help
users avoid and correct mistakes when using forms, etc. |
|
| Make all
functionality available from a keyboard. |
|
| Web pages should be designed in ways that
are as compatible as possible with current
and future technologies. |
|
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Web standards compliance
The World Wide Web Consortium sets out a number of guiding principles regrading web content accessibility. The University's guidance
reflects this web standard.
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Other things to consider
Web authors should also consider the following points. This information is
also available separately as part of the accessibility
check-list which you can print out for easy reference.
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Further help and information
The Web Editing and Digital Media team offer advice on
accessible web content and writing for the web.
Learning technology:
Advice on creating accessible online resources is available on the ELeN web
site:
Student Support:
The Student Support Office
provides disability advice for staff and students.
Help from elsewhere:
The following websites offer guidance in designing accessible sites: