Web Accessibility

In 1998, Section 508 Law was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology and provide electronic information to users with disabilities. Because of this, website accessibility has become a priority for schools. Individuals with vision, hearing, physical or learning disabilities need to be accommodated so they have comparable access to information on the web.

Various forms of assistive technology are available to assist users with disabilities so they can interpret screen content. An example of web accessibility assistive technology is screen reader software which allows blind or visually impaired users to listen to the content of web pages.

View the links on the right to better understand and meet these requirements.

• When formatting text, clear previous fonts and colors.
• Use the Headings option to format headings and titles to the appropriate size.
• Do not use underlines.
• Eliminate unnecessary blank spaces.
• Make PDFs accessible before uploading to page. If PDFs are already on the page, check for accessibility. Fix and reattach if necessary.
• Check for broken links.
• Create descriptive ALT tags for images.
• Before publishing the page, use the Preview option to see what the page will look like on mobile and desktop screens.

ALT tags should be brief and descriptive. They should not be full sentences or paragraphs. ALT tags have a 125 character limit: keep them short. They should contain enough information for people who can’t see the images to understand what the image represents.

ALT Tag Example

ALT tag — 2 rabbits
This ALT tag is not descriptive enough for the image.

ALT tag — grey rabbit on left and white rabbit with red eyes on right lying in grass with yellow flowers around them
This ALT tag is too long for the image.

ALT tag — grey and white rabbit lying in grass
This ALT tag is great to use for the image.