Faculty and Staff » Digital Accessibility » Digital Accessibility Basics
Whether you're posting on social media, designing a webpage, or creating course materials, these tips will help ensure your content is inclusive and accessible for everyone. Unsure where to begin? Start with the basics. Been working with digital accessibility for a while? Sometimes it’s good to revisit the basics.
Writing style influences the reader and affects content accessibility. WebAIM has a great resource on Writing Clearly and Simply.
A lot goes into making content accessible. The font selection, spacing, and headings all impact the accessibility of the content. There is no one right answer. Designing with accessibility in mind is helpful when formatting text. Here is a video that is approximately 10 minutes long, showing various fonts, font sizes, and spacing to help with selecting fonts.
Fonts need to be readable. When viewing on a screen, certain fonts appear more visually appealing than others.
Although Times New Roman is a serif font, it is considered an accessible digital font. If using it, please ensure it is Times New Roman, not Times or Times Roman. The Times New Roman font has undergone slight changes to make it web accessible. Our department recommends using Times New Roman solely for headings or documents that will mainly be printed.
White space serves a purpose. It enhances both visual appeal and readability.
Headings are used to structure content. Think of them like chapter titles. Every web page or document must have at least one heading.
Although only one Heading 1 is permitted, multiple headings for other levels are allowed. Use headings to organize content. Screen reader users use headings to quickly scan the page or document. Headings allow them to quickly jump to a section. Keep headings descriptive and concise. Use styles to structure headings rather than using bold or font size alone.
Avoid relying on color alone to convey meaning. For example, if there is a graph with two solid lines, one red and one blue, color alone distinguishes the lines. Instead, make one line dashed so sighted users can benefit from the color; but with one line dashed and the other solid, color isn’t the only way to tell them apart.
Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background. Use tools such as WebAIM Contrast Checker or TPGi’s Colour Contrast Analyzer to check contrast ratios. TPGI’s Colour Contrast Analyzer is available for installation on Northeast State Community College's computers. Please submit a Help Desk Ticket to have it installed on a college-owned computer.
Images can enhance digital content, but screen readers can’t interpret images without assistance. Adding alternative text, also known as alt text, is how a screen reader describes the image. It’s also what appears when the image doesn’t load on the screen.
Accessible links help everyone understand where a link leads and what it does. Look at the previous links. Is it clear what is available when clicking the link? That is the goal!
Making links descriptive helps screen reader users understand where the link goes and improves the experience for visual users.
Not everyone uses a mouse. Make sure all content is accessible with just the keyboard.
Tables are a great way to organize information, but several key considerations should be kept in mind when using them.
Not only can acronyms and abbreviations be hard to understand, but they can also be inaccessible to some people with disabilities. If using acronyms or abbreviations, be sure to spell them out the first time using them on a page, document, or social media post.
For example, if you encounter the letters 'TN', what do they mean? My guess is Tennessee.
Consider the following 'TN' examples:
Here is a better way to approach the previous examples:
Captions and transcripts are not the same thing.
AI is doing remarkable things with auto-generated captions, and it is a great first step for creating captions. YouTube captioning is approximately 70% accurate, and YuJa captioning is around 90% accurate. Notice neither is 100%. The quality of the video affects how well the auto captions work. Always review the captions and correct them to meet WCAG success criteria 1.2.2.
Connect with Northeast State