Accessibility Practices for Web Content Contributors

It takes a village to keep the SUNY Broome website up to date, and the MarCom team appreciates all who contribute and help keep it updated. Below are some basic tips to help keep your content accessible on the pages that you maintain. Please note that following these steps alone does not necessarily mean that your website is compliant, but these are best practices intended to help you reach that goal.

Expand each area below for more details.

Alternative text is the content that is displayed or read in place of an image. It should describe what is happening in the image for those with visual or certain cognitive disabilities, or those who may have images turned off in their browser. It is also used by search engines to help better determine the content of a page.

Text should be selectable where possible, which makes it easier for a screen reader to pick up.

Visitors to your page should be alerted if they’re about to download a non-HTML file such as a pdf or Word document. To do this, add the file type extension inside the linked text.

For example, if linking to a downloadable pdf version of the Enrollment Checklist, the link should be displayed as follows:

Enrollment Checklist (pdf)

The key feature of an accessible document is that the text is selectable, and therefore can be read by a screen reader.

Maintaining appropriate contrast between text and its background is critical for accessibility. SUNY Broome’s default text colors for headings, text and links have been tested to have the appropriate contrast levels (WCAG 2.0 AA), and should not be customized. The same applies for the default size of headings and paragraph text.

Screen readers also rely on proper headings (h1, h2, h3, etc…) to help guide a user through content. Screen readers cannot differentiate between regular text versus bold or underlined text, so headings should not be represented as regular text that has been bolded, underlined, or italicized.

Important information should not be conveyed using color only. For example, if you’re having a user fill out a form and you’ve indicated requires fields are in red, this can be a problem for users with certain types of color blindness. Important information such as this should have a text indicator as well. In the example described, the instructions could state that required fields are indicated in red and by an asterisk, thereby giving required fields a text indicator as well.

Any external application/widget/code you add to your page must be accessible.

A basic test is seeing if you can navigate the widget using your tab key on your keyboard. Start by clicking in the web address bar in your browser and then hit the tab key until you have gone through your entire page. It’s important that visual focus is given to each clickable element of your widget and you can “click” it using your Enter key.

It’s advisable to contact webmaster@sunybroome.edu for confirmation of your widget’s accessibility.

Underlined text on a page is an indication to users that the text is a link. If you need to add emphasis to text, try making it bold, but know that screen readers won’t differentiate bold vs non-bold text to users.