Alternate Media Center

Web Accessibility Guidelines

• Web Accessibility Checklist
• Web Accessibility Training

Warning! "The some links on this page will take you to sites outside the Cuesta College web server. Cuesta College has no control over the content or availability of these sites."

The Alternate Media Facilitator wrote these Web Accessibility Guidelines to help faculty and staff develop or modify web pages in an accessible way. In order to use these guidelines, you will need some knowledge of HTML or experience using an HTML editor such as FrontPage. There are software tools such as ACC-Verify and A-Prompt, which prompt you to modify your web page to make it more accessible. Training on web page accessibility is provided by the Alternate Media Facilitator and by the Technology Trainers in Computer Services.

(a) If you use images, provide an Alt tag with a clear text description. For bullets, use an alt tag of alt="*". Null alt tags may be used for graphics which are simply eye candy, alt="". For complex images, a longdesc may be more appropriate. Visit our Alt Tag Page or Section 508 Alt Tags.

(b) If you use multimedia presentations, such as MPEG movies, provide synchronized captions and audio descriptive narration. Visit our Video Captioning Page or Section 508 Multimedia.

(c) If you use colors on your web pages, allow for sufficient contrast between colors on a page, and make sure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.  Increase the font size of light color fonts on dark color backgrounds to improve visibility. Visit  Section 508 Color.

(d) If you use cascading style sheets, verify that your documents can be read without the associated style sheet. Visit our CSS Pages or Section 508 CSS.

(e) If you use server-side image maps, provide redundant text links for each active region of the map. Visit  Section 508 SS Image Maps.

(f) Use client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps when possible. Visit  Section 508 CS Image Maps.

(g) If you use tables to present data, include row and column headers using the "Scope" method. Visit our Tables Page or Section 508 Tables.

(h) If you use data tables with two or more levels of row or column headers, associate data cells and header cells using the "ID" and "Headers" method. Visit our Complex Tables Page or Section 508 Tables.

(i) If you use frames, provide each frame with a title to aid in identification and navigation. Visit our Frames Page or Section 508 Frames.

(j) Do not use "blink" or marques (scrolling text), or cause the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz. Visit  Section 508 Flicker.

(k) If you cannot make your page accessible any other way, create a text-only version of the page. Remember to update the text-only page whenever the primary page changes. Visit  Section 508 Text-only.

(l) If you use JavaScript to display content, include a <noscript> tag. Visit  Section 508 Scripts.

(m) If your web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to the plug-in or applet. Visit  Section 508 Plug-ins.

(n) If you use forms, clearly associate labels with control elements using the label and ID attributes. You may apply alt tags to the controls. Visit our Forms Page or Section 508 Forms.

(o) If you have a long list of links in your page, provide a skip navigation link. Visit our Skip Navigation Link Page or Section 508 Skip Nav.

(p) If your page or form requires a response in a certain amount of time, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate that more time is required. Visit Section 508 Timed Response.

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Page maintained by dspsweb@cuesta.edu. Last modified: July 3, 2007.