Importance of Accessibility in Content Management System
Ensuring that your content is accessible is crucial for providing equal opportunities for all users, regardless of their abilities. Accessibility aims to make digital content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for individuals with disabilities. In this write-up, we'll cover some important guidelines and examples to make your Drupal content more accessible.
Accessibility Guidelines and Standards
Sites should meet WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. We strive for WCAG 2.1 AAA conformance.
Implementing Accessibility Features
This checklist is to be used as a tool to ensure new and existing websites, apps, digital services, and products meet WCAG 2.1 AA conformance.
Use Proper Heading Structure:
- Organize your content using heading tags (H2, H3, etc.) to create a clear hierarchy.
- Correctly nest headings to maintain a logical structure.
Provide Alternative Text for Images:
- Use descriptive alt text for images to provide context to visually impaired users.
- Keep alt text concise and relevant.
Links
- Create Meaningful Link Text:
- Use descriptive link text instead of generic phrases like "click here" or "read more."
- Ensure that the link text makes sense when read out of context.
- Several links on a page share the same link text, but go to different destinations.
- Make the link text unique for each target.
- Ideally the link text should be modified to be unique so the user knows they will be going to a unique link. An example would be an events list where the title is a link to the unique event. If you have an event "Weekly book club" that is on the 5th, and another event "Weekly book club" that is on the 12th, this will be flagged because those links have the same text but link to a unique event. The ideal way to fix this would be to add additional context to the title - "Weekly book club - April 5th" or some other differentiator that would not confuse a user with a screen reader.
- Make the link text unique for each target.
- Rectify broken links.
Spelling errors
- Spelling errors will break screen reader output and reduce the reading score of the content.
Provide Transcripts for Multimedia:
- Include transcripts or captions for audio and video content.
- Transcripts allow users with hearing impairments to access the content.
- For agencies, this would mean properly transcribing any embedded YouTube videos. The automated transcriptions provided by google are usually incorrect.
File data issues
- PDF issues. Examples below are of common issues reported by accessibility scanners. Provide these phrases along with the name of your preferred PDF authoring tool in a google/bing search to find tutorials on how to ensure your PDFs meet accessibility guidelines.
- PDF does not contain XMP metadata stream.
- PDFs must be tagged to be accessible by screen readers.
- The metadata stream in the Catalog dictionary does not include the PDF/UA identifier.
- Use the lang attribute to identify the language of the page.
- Microsoft Word issues. Examples below are of common issues that make word documents not accessible. Research how to fix these in your preferred authoring tool.
- Word document contains a non-inline graphic or object.
- Word document contains a graphic without Alt Text.
Readability
- Flesch Reading Score
- 65 or above
- Reading age
- Below 9 years
- While this is a WCAG AAA requirement and should be strived for, it is an important part of making government information accessible.
- Note that if the content is very specific and cannot have its score reduced, you can also provide a summary with the content that meets the reading score level.
- There are many tools available, but we recommend Microsoft word. You can copy your content area text into Microsoft word and run a reading score test.
- Navigate to Home. Select “Editor”. Under “Insights” select “Document stats”.
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-your-document-s-readabil…
- Additional resources
Testing and Auditing for Accessibility Compliance
It's important to note that accessibility is an ongoing process. Remember, accessible websites not only comply with legal requirements but also provide an inclusive user experience for all individuals, regardless of their abilities. Visit the Chief Marketing Office website to learn about guidelines and best practices for Creating Accessible Communications.
Websites should be tested regularly using screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, and other assistive technologies. Additionally, it is important to regularly audit content to ensure that it complies with accessibility best practices. Testing and auditing will identify accessibility barriers when navigating the site and content that needs to be revised.
A helpful tool to test and audit websites internally is the WAVE web accessibility evaluation tool. If you would like to learn more about additional options to have your website tested and audited, please consult with the Director of Web Services.
Additional Resources
- UVM Drupal content recommendations