Benefits of using web pages to publish information
The best way to have accessible content is by displaying the information in web pages rather than publishing online documents such as PDFs and Microsoft Word.
As well as making it more accessible for people, publishing the content in a web page (rather than a PDF/Word document) have the following benefits:
- Any changes to the information can be made easily by editing the web page
- The information in html is easier to find than in a PDF/Word document and will have a higher Google search ranking
- Web pages have a responsive design and will fit the user's screen according to the device / browser
- The user can navigate their way around the website through the menu, whereas a PDF/Word document might not have the relevant links
Alt text for images
Alt text (alternative text) is a description of an image or other non-text content on a webpage. To ensure accessibility for users who are visually impaired, it is important to include alt text in all images and other non-text content in documents for the web. The alt text should have the following:
- Accurate description: The alt text should accurately describe the contents of the image or non-text content. This helps users who are visually impaired understand what the image is conveying
- Brief: The alt text should be brief and to the point, as longer descriptions can be difficult for screen readers to process. A general guideline is to keep alt text under 125 characters
- Avoid redundant phrases: Avoid phrases like "image of" or "graphic of" in the alt text as these add no additional information and take up valuable character space
- Provide context: In some cases, providing context for the content can be helpful. For example, if an image is a chart or graph, the alt text could describe what the chart or graph is showing
- Null value for decorative images: If an image is used purely for decorative purposes and does not convey any meaningful information, the alt text should be left empty or use alt="". Screen readers will then skip over these images, saving time and avoiding confusion for users who are visually impaired
By following these guidelines, you can ensure that all images and non-text content on your website are accessible to users with visual impairments.
Creating Accessible Documents
If this isn't possible and the information has to be published in a PDF or Word, here are some useful tips:
- Set out a structure for the document which includes headings
- Keep the language plain and simple - write in short, clear sentences
- Choose a plain font
- Name and describe the images included
- Avoid using tables in the document
- Check the accessibility of your document by using PDF / Word’s built-in checker
There are free Microsoft accessibility learning modules available to help you create fully accessible content.
Colour and Contrast
Not all users perceive colour and contrast the same. People with low vision, colour blindness or using monochrome displays might have issues with colour and contrast on screens or devices.
When creating documents, it’s important to ensure that a correct colour contrast has been selected. Here are tools that can give an indication as to whether or not the desired colours provide sufficient colour contrast.
A checker tool will allow you to easily determine the contrast ratio of two colours simply using an eyedrop tool. It can also identify what will be AA compliance and AAA compliance.
Colour Contrast checker by webaim
This contrast generator tool can be used to give you the closest colour match that will meet AA and AAA level of conformance.
Quick Video Tutorials
[0:01]
Hi, so today I'm going to show you how to create an accessibility report using Word on the Mac.
[0:08]
So, first of all, open your document that you want to check.
[0:12}
And then if you go up to the blue bar here and select Review, and once you select Review this bar will show up.
[0:19]
And this item here, Check Accessibility is the one that you need to click on.
[0:24]
So click on that and then the results will show up in this box here on the right hand side.
[0:29]
So if you click on these tabs here, they'll show you more information about what's wrong, what hasn't passed the test.
[0:36]
And the other videos will show you in more depth how to resolve any issues.
[0:42]
The videos will show the most common issues that do arise in these types of documents.
[0:42]
Thank you.
[0:01] VISUAL DESCRIPTION - Computer Screen showing a Pdf Document and small video in the left hand corner showing the speaker.
[0:02] Hello. My name is Dafydd Pattinson. And today I'm going to show you how to generate an accessibility report through Adobe Acrobat.
[0:09] Now, I find the quickest way and the easiest way to do this is to click on the Search Tools bar here.
[0:17] So that's to write "accessibility" and up comes Accessibility Check.
[0:24] Once we click on that, we get this here and everything that's shown here,
[0:30] we need to leave ticked as it just goes through everything that's in the report.
[0:36] And then we just click on Start Checking and we should see the results.
[0:48]. So as you can see, the document has three issues.
[0:52] One of them also is a tables issue and a list issue.
[0:58] And in the next couple of videos I will show you how to rectify that problem.
[0:01]
So if you've been using the accessibility checker in Word on your Mac and it's shown up that the title has failed the accessibility check.
[0:12]
What you need to do is if you go to File at the top here, then properties,
[0:20]
and then Summary you'll see that the title box here is empty.
[0:25]
So if we put a proper title in here and go to OK
[0:33]
And then go to Review again.
[0:38]
Check Accessibility and you'll see that the title error has now disappeared from the box.
[0:01]
Hello. Today, I'm going to show you how to make an accessible report in Word.
[0:07]
So what I find easiest is to click on File here and click on Info.
[0:16]
If we go down here, we can see Inspect Document. If we click on this and then we go for the second option here where it says Check Accessibility,
[0:25]
click on that. And as we can see, the issues pop up on the right hand side here.
[0:42]
In the next couple of videos, I will show you how to fix these issues and make sure that your file is accessible and ready to be uploaded.
[0:01] VISUAL DESCRIPTION: Computer Screen showing Pdf document and a small video in the left hand corner showing the speaker.
[0:01] Hello. In this video, we will try and sort out the issue of fixing the title within this PDF and to do so we will just
[0:11] click on the drop down section here on documents where there's three issues showing.
[0:17] We will go to the title here, click on it and then right click and then it should say Fix, click on Fix.
[0:27] and then we will uncheck the 'leave as is' box and then we will put in the title, which here
[0:37] is "The Strategy 2030 Widening Access".
[0:44] So put that in. Leave the tick box unchecked.
[1:02] Click. OK. And as you can see here now, it says that the title has now passed.
[0:02]
One of the most common issues you will find in accessibility reports is that the title will show as it has failed.
[0:12]
Now, the quickest way to solve this issue is we go and click on file,
[0:21]
and then we go on information again, info. And then here we can see the section says Title and it says here,
[0:32]
so we'll just correct this.
[0:39]
And then we will give it the correct title. And there you have it.
[0:46]
Now it will show that there are no issues
[0:50]
If I go on Information, Check Accessibility
[0:56]
There you have it, it shows that there is no accessibility issues found.
[1:02]
I hope that helps. Thanks.