A Summary of Accessibility Guidelines: Page 2
This section's guidelines are for MSWord, PDFs, Excel, Powerpoint, Web pages, and Video (and their equivalents in other software packages). the recommendations are almost the same for all these various document types. This first section puts the guidelines together and differentiates when necessary between software techniques.
The following table will contain a property on the left, and accessibility requirements or suggestions on the right. Text listed in bold is required to achieve accessibility.
| Data Tables | Provide an alternative text or description. Tables should be tagged correctly. In Word: Use percents rather than fixed numbers for column width. In Excel: Identify and highlight row and column headers. Use titles for rows and columns that are grouped. |
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| Design | Be consistent throughout, use the same fonts, styles, margins, headers, and footers.
Add invisible (white on white) notes about text or reading flow. Create a logical tab order for your documents. |
| File Size | Keep file sizes as small as possible. Obviously, a smaller file size yields a faster delivery. Be especially cautious with PowerPoint and PDF documents, which are prone to becoming very large. Remember video and audio compression are tools available for your use. |
| Fonts | Use Serif for printed documents. Use Sans-Serif for electronic documents. |
| Font Size | Use 12 point but allow zoom. In HTML use CSS and/or relative sizing versus absolute size. |
| Form Fields | Provide a short description for every element. Keep input elements close to their lables. For Example: __________ (phone #). Form elements are common in PDF, web, and Word documents, but less common in PowerPoint and Excel. Allow sufficient space between elements. If possible, allow audio input into form fields. |
| Graphs | Provide an alternative text or description. In some cases, a long description may be necessary. Use a hyperlink (for the web) or make it a part of the caption to ensure it stays with the graph. |
| Hyperlink Text | Hyperlinks are common in most document types. Make the wording meaningful out of context. Some reading software pick out hyperlinks alone for faster navigation, so text like "click here" becomes meaningless. Links must not be hidden behind other elements Do not put links in a series, or put spaces and/or other text between them. Use seperate lines. Group related links with a label. Provide a link to the top of the page. |
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