Web Accessibility

1, 2

Accessible Navigation

• Provide a means for skipping navigation.

• By providing a means of skipping the navigation section of your web page, those using screen readers do not have to repeatedly listen to the navigation information before reaching the content of your page. (While a first-time visitor will find the navigation helpful, one who uses your site multiple times could be irritated at having to listen to this information every time they visit.)

• Skip navigation links can be provided in several ways:

• The link can be placed in normal text ("Skip to main content").
• The link text can be an image that is the same color as the background color to blend in to the background.
• The link can be provided via a decorative image with the alt tag set as "skip to content".

• Avoid using frames.

• While once a popular way to set up web pages, frames are becoming less popular as they make it more difficult to bookmark a web site. They also pose significant accessibility problems.

• Use heading tags, <h1>, <h2>, to designate headings on the page.

• When setting up heading tags, think of the headings in a book. Level one might be the page title chapter, <h1>, level two might be the main section headings, <h2>, level three might be subheadings, <h3>, etc. However, do not use these heading tags for formatting text that is not in a heading.