Web Accessibility

Headings

Heading tags give the user a clear idea of what the page content is about. Today's users of the web, skim pages by reading the different heading tags on a page. It is important to use headings to show the document structure and it's also important for a web page to have properly structure content for accessibility devices.

Example of a heading structure:

Heading 1 : <h1>

Should be used for main headings.

Heading 2 : <h2>

Used after <h1> to designate second most important content on a page.

Heading 3 : <h3>

Used after <h3> to designate third most important content on a page.

Heading 4 : <h4>

Used after <h3> to designate fourth most important content on a page.

For more information regarding heading structure, please visit accessibility.iu.edu

Alternative text for Images

Alternative Text or Alt text is alternative information for those people who have either chosen to disable images in their browsers and those who simply are unable to see the images.

Alt Text should describe what the image is about, because blind and visually impaired people otherwise won’t know what the image is for.

The alt tag is used by screen readers, in assisting the blind and visually impaired people to tell them what is on the image.

**All images need to have descriptive alternative text. Avoid using charts or tables as an image.

For more information regarding alternative text, please visit accessibility.iu.edu

Link informative text, not URLS

Avoid putting URL’s in content
Instead hyperlink informative text

Don’t

You can find more information on our Faculty handbook 2014-2015 academic year
https://northwest.iu.edu/faculty/handbook-2014-2015-academic-year

Do

You can find more information on our Faculty handbook 2014-2015 academic year

In some cases the URL maybe needed if the url is a brand: one.iu.edu or accessibility.iu.edu

Documents

Departments are responsible for ensuring all of their department documents (pdf, word, excel, PowerPoint etc.) are ADA compliant.This is the responsibility of the department.

Departments can learn how to make their documents ADA compliant by completing the IUN Content Accessibility Compliance Course.

**All content managers will need to complete the IUN Content Accessibility Compliance Course

All documents need to be accessible to those who have disabilities.

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Powerpoint
Adobe PDF's

Additional Resources

Microsoft Accessibility training for Word , Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook

Microsoft Office Accessibility Center - Resources for people with disabilities.

Document Checklist

Adobe PDF's

Add a title and a subject to the document's properties.
Add a document title and subject is located under the file menu under info. Under the properties section; you would enter your title and subject into a form field.
Add alt text to images
Correct Heading Structure if needed
Add summary/alt text to the table
Add alt text to chart
Remove & replace the hyperlink with informative linked text
Convert Headings into Bookmarks
Save as PDF. Under "options" check the checkbox for "enable tagging" and click save. Also, run the Accessibility Checker in Adobe to ensure that your PDF is fully accessible

Word/ Excel/ Powerpoint

Add a title and a subject to the document's properties.
Add a document title and subject located under the file menu under info. Under the properties section; you would enter your title into a form field. For the subject click the "Show All Properties" link to show the additional properties.
Add alt text to images
Correct Heading Structure if needed
Add summary/alt text to the table
Add alt text to chart
Remove & replace the hyperlink with informative linked text
Save document
- NOTE: When saving Word documents as a PDF, please ensure that you enable tagging.

UITS Northwest