Web accessibility means that online content is available to anyone who wants to access it, including people with disabilities using a screen reader and people using limited or mobile technology. Accessibility shouldn’t be seen as an extra burden for web writers – accessible content makes the online experience better for everyone.
Accessibility applies to websites and to documents that are available on websites. Here are some basic tips to get you started:
- Use styles to tag content (rather than manually applying bold, italics, etc).
- Don’t skip heading levels (eg Heading 2 must be followed by Heading 3 and should not skip straight to Heading 4). Check this in Outline view in Word.
Alternative text
- Provide alt text for all figures, maps and photos.
- Describe the contents and message of the image. For example, if you’re describing a graph, describe the overall trend of the data, not every data point.
Tables
- Enter your table as a table, not tabbed text, text frames or an image.
- Specify column header rows and don’t leave cells blank.
For more information, visit the Australian manual of scientific style.