The document outlines essential considerations for ensuring website accessibility from the planning phase. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating accessibility into requirements, design, and development processes, while also addressing the need for training and responsibility allocation within organizations. Key best practices include providing alternative texts for images, ensuring sufficient color contrast, and creating a versatile and robust website design that serves a diverse user base.

1. Accessibility
- what to consider from day 1 of planning a new
website
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2. Why is it important?
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3. Accessibility is a right
The Equality Act came into force in
October 2010
” A person ... concerned with the
provision of a service to the public or
a section of the public (for payment or
not) must not discriminate against a
person requiring the service by not
providing the person with the service”.
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4. The good case – start at day 0
• As soon as you talk about a new
website – think accessibility
• Accessibility is a process and not
a project and it is relevant
throughout the lifetime of a
website
• Include design guides and
communications guides
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5. Make requirements
• When doing requirement
specifications include
accessibility
– State individual WCAG
requirements
– Pick from ATAG and make
requirements
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6. Remember CMS editor
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Handle alternative texts for images
The use of headings
The ability to create accessible data
tables
How to make quotes (<q> and
<blockquote>)
How to enter page titles
How the HTML code created by the
CMS complies with the W3C standards
How to tag change of language in the
text entered
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7. Design Phase
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Navigation
The use of headings
Colours and contrasts
Link texts and descriptions where
the user is to click on, fill out or
choose content on web pages
Have the design looked at with accessibility in mind
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8. Development
Most criteria are relevant
•Important that the people developing
the solution have a solid
understanding of accessibility
•Make sure you thoroughly test the
solution at various points throughout
the process
•It's especially important that the
templates for different pages are
tested as early as possible
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9. Publishing Content
• Training web editors to publish
content the 'accessible way‘
– helps improve your website's
accessibility rather than introducing
new issues
• Have policies on what and how
to publish
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10. Media Players, Forms and Old Content
Areas often being neglected are where
3rd party solutions are used
•Media players
•Forms
•Social Media links
Remember to consider old content
being migrated from the old system
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11. Best Practice – public websites in Denmark
National IT and Telecom Agency - April 2011
Interviews and questionnaires with web site
owners and web site providers
•Methods for ensuring accessibility
•Organising the work
•Conditions (knowledge and tools),
•Use of resources and support
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12. Focus from management & placing responsibilities
• Important for achieving good
accessibility
• Make sure to have:
– Written accessibility strategy
or
– Prioritise resources for accessibility
• Most important: Place the overall
responsibilities with a person in the
organisation – responsible for
ensuring compliance
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13. Allocate resources
• Awareness of prioritisation of
resources – where the users
benefit the most
• Important that when purchasing
new solutions for the website
the organisation has knowledge
about web accessibility and work
with the provider throughout the
development process
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14. Integrated process
• The web publishing tasks should be
with few staff members – they will have
experience and competence
• Test systematically – as part of a
general tests of quality
• Correct errors
Experience, competence and tests gives a
publishing practice with fewer errors.
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15. Killing the myths
• Best Practice organisations see
accessibility as good web practice –
other organisations with poor
accessibility see accessibility as
beneficial for a limited amount of
users
• The overall costs of accessibility for
organisations is estimated to be 1-5%
of the overall cost of a website
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16. Placing responsibilities with one person
Participation in relevant processes
of decision making
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Digitalisation
Design and communication
Technology and purchase
Training
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17. Whom and what?
• Designers
– Accessible colours and structure
• Vendors / developers
– A CMS supporting accessible
publishing
– A technical solution comforming with
the requirements
• Web editors
– Use CMS in a way that maintains
accessibility
– Upload accessible content
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18. Policies and procedures
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Design guides
Templates and documents
Policies
Tools
External providers
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19. Documents
Think ahead:
•Accessible templates
•Create pdf’s in the ‘accessible way’
•Make requirements to providers
Existing archive:
•Fix documents on most visited pages
•Provide help for users on request for
the rest – contact information
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20. Accessibility Top 5
Text for everyone
Versatility
Association
Colour for everyone
Robustness
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21. Text for everyone
• Make sure all text can be
highlighted and read aloud so that
screen readers and reading tools
can access them
– Turning off style sheets
– Try it with reading tools / test with
real users
• Avoid images of text where
possible. Where not, make sure that
text alternatives are equivalent
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22. Text for everyone II
• Give alternative text for
images for those (screen
readers and search
engines) that cannot see
an image. An alternative
text must reflect the
purpose of the image.
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Decorative /
creating visual
context: no
alternative text
Having a function:
describe the
function
Linking:
Describe
destination
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23. Versatility
Create a website that can be used by
as many as possible, in as many ways
as possible according to user needs.
•All functionality can be used with a
mouse
•All functionality can be used without
a mouse – from the keyboard alone.
•Users can adapt colour and font
according to specific needs.
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24. Association
• Text, headings, buttons, fields
etc. that are logically connected
must also visually be connected.
• Make sure it is also connected in
the code.
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25. Colours for all
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Make sure that the colour of the
background and colour of the text is in
sufficient contrast to each other. That
way people with low vision can also
read it.
Make sure you do not give information
to the user only by use of colour (such
as saying ‘In the green box you will
find…’). Otherwise it can create
problems for both users with low vision
or no vision, or people with colour
blindness.
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Can you read this?
Can you read this?
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27. Robustness
• Have a consistent design
throughout the website
• Follow known conventions
• Follow the standard for the
format you are publishing in (for
example xhtml 4.1 syntax) – this
will optimise your website for
many different platforms and
user agents
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28. Documents
• Structure documents
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Headings
Lists
Tables
Alternative text for images
Columns
• Ensure reading order
• Save as pdf – do not print as pdf
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29. ”Google is also blind”
•
Page titles
•
Alternative text for images
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Headings
•
Link texts
– Unique and containing key words for the
web page
– Where the image conveys important
information
– Using H-tags and not just large text or
bold text
– ‘Click here’, ‘Read more’ and such should
be avoided
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30. More information
• Webinars
• Blog Posts
• Whitepaper
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