Accessibility Guidelines

Introduction to guidelines and techniques for making web content accessible

Accessibility Guidelines

The 'Accessibility: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0' are written by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

  • These guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible.
  • They are to be followed by all Web content developers.

The W3C have also written 'Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0'.

  • These guidelines explain how to implement the fourteen checkpoints.
  • They discuss each checkpoint in detail with examples.

Do I need to know all guidelines?

Because the guidelines are for all Web content developers, they contain a lot of general information that will be of no use to you specifically. For example, rule 7 relates to moving or flashing text. So unless you will be creating images containing moving or flashing text, you can ignore this rule completely.

Similarly, some techniques are not appropriate or available to you. For example, you will not use abbreviation and acronym tags. You will use the same convention used at the top of this page to describe the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Simply type the full name followed by the bracketed abbreviation.

There is also considerable overlap between guidelines. For example, rules 3, 6, 12, 13 and 14 all concern writing style. To prevent repetition, I have collected all the style guidelines into one section about style.

So you should not need to read any W3C guidelines, providing you follow the guidelines I have compiled from their guidelines.

What guidelines should I read?

I have compiled four different guidelines for the four types of content you can add to the website:

Please note: you will also need to read the usability guidelines.

Further information

If you would like to know more about accessibility in general, the 14 guidelines and techniques are available from the W3C website using the links below.

Online accessibility guidelines

  1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
  2. Don't rely on color alone.
  3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
  4. Clarify natural language usage.
  5. Create tables that transform gracefully.
  6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
  7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes.
  8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
  9. Design for device-independence.
  10. Use interim solutions.
  11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
  12. Provide context and orientation information.
  13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms.
  14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple.

Techniques for achieving web content accessibility

  1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
  2. Don't rely on color alone.
  3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
  4. Clarify natural language usage.
  5. Create tables that transform gracefully.
  6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
  7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes.
  8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
  9. Design for device-independence.
  10. Use interim solutions.
  11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
  12. Provide context and orientation information.
  13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms.
  14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple.