Web Accessibility

Section 508 Web Development

Keep accessibility considerations in mind when planning and designing a website. Build accessibility into the web site process and development workflow. Ask yourself how would someone who can only use a keyboard, have impaired sight or other accessibility requirements use this website?

IT IS THE LAW

All government divisions are required by law to meet accessibility according to WCAG 2.0 AA standards.

WCAG 2.0, published in 2008, covers a wide range of recommendations for making web content more accessible. Accessibility impairments include blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, or photosensitivity.

Four Principle Guidelines

  • Perceivable
    The information and user interface must easily demonstrate the point.
  • Operable
    The user interface components and navigation is predictable.
  • Understandable
    The information and user interface is easy to comprehend.
  • Robust
    The website content must be interpreted reliably by assistive technologies.

Practical Interpretation of Law

Bacically the web content must read accurately and smoothly with screen-readers and be keyboard-friendly and access all information without dependence on the mouse.

  • Skip Navigation
    If your site contains repetitive elements, a “skip navigation” link allows users to skip over them to access main content area of the page.
  • WAI-ARIA
    Provides the ability for developers to specify roles for document areas, and provide landmarks for navigation. ARIA roles are becoming an accessibility requirement. ARIA roles define what an element is or does, ARIA properties define the meaning of elements and ARIA states are properties that define the current condition of an element.
  • Facilitate Navigation
    Include headings, lists, Aria roles and other structural elements, that facilitate navigation with a keyboard, and are essential for people who cannot use a mouse.
  • Compliant Forms
    Users with screen readers or other assistive technology should be able to fill out and submit all forms. Providing keyboard access requires that each widget is one tab stop by default. Once a user has tabbed into a widget, the arrow keys can move focus to each of the widget’s descendants.
  • Color Blind
    Color is a navigational tool, because colorblind people and screen readers cannot differentiate based on color alone.
  • Readibility
    Readability is gauged by typographical clarity and the ability of the user to increase the font-size from the keyboard enough to understand the content.

Additional Best Practices

  • Responsive Measurements
    Fixed pixel measurements can cause parts of the page not to respond to resizing, therefore the best practice is to use EM measurements.
  • Intuitive
    Make the page flow and information clear and intuitive by following usability best practices.
  • Alternative Text
    All images used to convey information must have alt text and descriptive captions.
  • Captions
    Multimedia sources require additional treatments for accessibility. If your website includes video, provide synchronized captioning. Audio podcasts should include transcripts.
  • Tagged
    Any documents included on the website, such as text files and PDFs, should be accessible in a logical order by screen readers.
  • Popups
    Popups should be avoided unless the focus clearly moves to the appropriate text block and then back to the main page clearly.
  • Checkers
    Accessibility checkers online can be used to help locate violations
  • Aria-roles