Accessibility is a top priority for our team. Our web platform, from the user interface you interact with to your externally facing site, is designed to be accessible for all users. Although our platform is developed with accessibility in mind, the content you add to your site also should follow accessibility best practices. We derive these best practices from W3C's Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG). In this article, you will be introduced to multiple accessibility best practices:

Nested Headings

Headings are used to communicate the organization of content on a page. This structured organization is important for communicating the priority in which information should be interpreted by end users. For users utilizing assistive and/or screen-reader technologies, proper heading structure is critical.

Per WCAG: "Nest headings by their rank (or level). The most important heading has the rank 1 (<h1>), the least important heading rank 6 (<h6>). Headings with an equal or higher rank start a new section, headings with a lower rank start new subsections that are part of the higher ranked section.

Skipping heading ranks can be confusing and should be avoided where possible: Make sure that an <h2> is not followed directly by an <h4>, for example. It is ok to skip ranks when closing subsections, for instance, a <h2> beginning a new section, can follow an <h4> as it closes the previous section."

View WCAG Tutorial

Descriptive Links

When incorporating hyperlinks into your content, avoid uninformative link phrases such as "click here," "more" and "read more." Hyperlinks are more fluid when they match the context in which they're being used.

Per WebAIM: "In fact, the phrase 'click here' is unnecessary, even if it precedes a more meaningful phrase. For example, a link that says 'click here to access today's weather' can be shortened to 'today's weather.' In some cases it may make sense to precede a link phrase with 'more' or 'read more about,' (e.g. 'more about global warming'), but if these extra words can be avoided, it is probably best to avoid them (e.g. 'global warming' may convey the same meaning as 'more about global warming,' depending on the context)."

For more information about contextual hyperlinks, please review webAIM's hypertext article.

Alternative (Alt) Text for Images

Alt text is an attribute that is required to be added to images on your site. When users utilizing screen readers access your site, alt text will be read by the screen reader to provide context for the image. Because of this, it's critical that alt text provides a brief description of the image that portrays accurate context.

When you add an image to your site, you will automatically be prompted to add alt text for the image. This alt text will be programmatically attributed to your image when placed.

For more information about alt text, please refer to WebAIM's alt text article.

Images/Graphics Including Text

For accessibility reasons, you should avoid using images and graphics containing text. If a user utilizing a screen reader were to come across the image, any context from the text contained in the image would not be perceivable. If necessary, you may use images/graphics with text; however, you must include the text contained in the image in the image's respective alt text attribute.

Captions for Embedded Video Content

Video content is susceptible to accessibility concerns. Please make sure all video content is manually captioned (preferable) or set to allow automatic captions. By allowing captions on embedded video content, users can leverage this functionality when needed.

Per WebAIM: "According to US government figures, one person in eight has some functional hearing limitation, and this number will increase as the average age of the population increases. Beyond people with disabilities, captioning helps people who only partially understand the language presented. Captions are also useful in noisy environments like airports, in quiet environments like libraries, and for multimodal learning."

For more information about video captioning, please refer to these articles (YouTube/Vimeo).

There are more accessibility-related best practices for web content than those in this article. For more information about web accessibility standards, please review W3C's WCAG and WebAIM's articles.

Do you need support?

If you have questions at any point throughout this training, please submit a request to Ag Comm Web Services through this web form.