Accessibility standards
One of the main themes of accessible design is flexibility; accessible design can adapt to diverse users and technologies. Accessible design anticipates the needs of people and the technologies they use, and provides multiple ways of perceiving and interacting with data. For example, accessible design does not require that everyone use the Explorer browser with a mouse, but rather assumes that some users will browse the web using Firefox and a keyboard. Accessibility standards help ensure that this kind of diversity can be accommodated.
This webpage reviews what you need to do to create accessible electronic communication, how to do it, and why it is important. The techniques included on this page are not comprehensive. This website was designed to assist staff who have little experience or knowledge of accessible design.
Staff with more specialized duties (example: video design) or technical roles (example: webmaster) require more detailed knowledge of the accessibility standards as they apply to their work, and thus should pursue more advanced trainings or refer directly to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) or Section 508 standards.
Select from the following list to learn more about a particular type of accessible electronic communication.
Documents
- Check reading order (Link under construction)
- Convert an accessible source document
Forms
- What should I do to make accessible forms? (Link under construction)
Powerpoint
- What should I do to make accessible Powerpoint? (Link under construction)
Multimedia
- What should I do to create accessible Multimedia? (Link under construction)
Website
- Font
- Alt text
- Links
- Skip navigation
- Acronyms and abbreviations
- Tables
- Forms
- Blinking and animation
- Multimedia
- Image maps
- Cascading Style Sheets
- Roll over
- Screen refresh
- Timed response
Application Development
- DoIT PDF: Designing Web applications
- DoIT PDF: Scripting for accessibility
