Accessibility

CSU Vision

All CSU programs, services, and activities should be accessible to all students, staff, faculty, and the general public. This encompasses all technology products used to deliver academic programs and services, student services, information technology services, and auxiliary programs and services.

MEMORANDUM - Code: AA-2013-03

Why Web Accessibility Is Important?

It is important that the Web be accessible to everyone in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities.

Web accessibility also benefit those with temporary or conditional disabilities which in some cases may be aging, slow internet connection, physical injury, or any other circumstances.

How can I make it accessible?

The Do's and Don't's
Category DO's DON'T's
Images - Alternative Text

Use alternative(alt) text that describe the image.
Examples:

  • 2 men standing with hands in the air cheering
  • student opening the door into a classroom
  • chart showing 75% success and %25 failure rate

Avoid using alt text that does no describe the image, including extension of the file, leaving it blank, using weird character and using the word "image" in your alt text(screen reader will read "image of" already).
Examples:

  • open Saturday
  • payroll.jpg
  •  
  • NoT_†od@y
  • image of 2 man

 
Images

Use image that is

  • comfortable to view within a 1 to 2 feet of the screen

Avoid using

  • small or blurry images
  • extremely large image that may take too long to load
  • empty placeholder images
Links

Clearly identify the target of each link. A good link text should not be overly general or vague.
Examples:

  • Fall 2013 Report
  • Google
  • Google Forms

Avoid using: generic words, using same text for different links, full url, and repetitive links.

Examples:

  • click here
  • here
  • here
  • there
  • link
  • quick link
  • turbo link
  • www.google.com/example/12/this_is_too_long_to_for_screen_reader_to_read.html
Heading

Using heading in chronological order.

Example:

  • Heading 1
    • Paragraph
  • Heading 2
  • Heading 3

Avoid skipping the chronological order of headers.

Example:

  • Heading 1
    • Paragraph
  • Heading 5
  • Heading 3
Tables

note: following our table creation tutorials will avoid most issues		 Must include:
 Avoid using H1-H6 titles to make entries stand out within table cells. Use standard Bold/Italic HTML Markup and Styles

It's best to avoid using colspan or rowspan for accessibility, otherwise you MUST include very specific id and headers attribute indicators to make table flow clear for audio consumers

Avoid using tables with multiple header rows or columns, otherwise you MUST include scope attributes to associate header cells and data cells in data tables

See our Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) site and Who To Contact for accessibility assistance.