One of the most important steps you can take when creating content for your site is to ensure that all pages are accessible to people with disabilities. Webaim.org provides a great introduction on web accessibility that you can review and reference when creating content along with the more advanced resources provided by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at the W3C.
University of Arizona Accessibility Resources
The University’s ITAccessibility website lists validation tools and techniques to test your website for accessibility as well as the option to contact them for support or consultation through the IT Accessibility Consultation Request Form.
Quick Tips for Creating Accessible Content in Quickstart
When creating content in Quickstart, remember to do the following things.
Utilize alt text for images in pages, blocks, marquees and carousels. This also includes other file types, such as PDFs.
Also provide meaningful alt text for header and footer logos. You can edit this information in Appearance > Settings > Arizona Barrio.
Avoid images that contain only words (with the exception of wordmarks and logos, which still require appropriate alt text).
Use captions when embedding videos. If possible, provide a video transcript as well.
Many people using screen readers navigate the page via headings. The h1 heading is typically taken care of for you because it is the page title. However, if you have chosen to Exclude title from Display, please be sure you have an h1 on your page.
See Using Headings
Give links unique descriptive names that reflect where the link will go – avoid Click here, Learn More, etc… especially in card decks.
Never use tables in your design for layout purposes. Tables should only be used for tabular data.
Arizona Digital is committed to continuous improvement in the area of web accessibility. Quickstart menus and page structures have been developed with screen readers and other accessibility requirements in mind. Alt tags, document structure, table headers, and accessible forms are all included in out of the box Quickstart. If you come across something inaccessible in a Quickstart site, please let us know. If you would like to learn more about Website Accessibility, please visit UArizona’s ITAccessibility Website.
Quickstart allows you to add hyperlinks to images, though when doing so it is best to consider the best practices for these as they can be accessibility issues if not done correctly.
Functional images are used to initiate actions rather than to convey information. They are used in buttons, links, and other interactive elements. The text alternative for the image should convey the action that will be initiated (the purpose of the image), rather than a description of the image.
For instance, as shown in examples below, the text alternative should be “print this page” rather than “(image of a) printer”, “search” rather than “magnifying lens” or “Example.com homepage” rather than “Example.com logo”.
Missing or empty alt values create significant problems for screen reader users because functional images are essential to the functionality of the content. Screen readers will typically announce the image file name, the image URL, or the URL for the link destination, which is unlikely to help users understand the action that will be initiated by the image.
See W3C documentation on Functional Images for more examples.