Tips and Guides to Accessible Content

Using Alt Text for Images

Images should always include equivalent alternative text in the code to describe what the image displays.

When appropriate alt text is provided, the information is available to everyone including blind people who are using screen readers, people who have turned off images on their mobile to lower bandwidth charges, people in rural areas with low bandwidth and also technologies that cannot see the images such as search engines. 

An example of appropriate alt text would be 'University of Western Sydney logo' and would appear in the code as <img alt="University of Western Sydney logo">

 

 

Hypertext Links 

Similarly to alt text, all links should have appropriate text to make sure that the content and functionality of the link is understood. Generic terms like 'Click Here' and 'More info' should always be avoided, and replaced with meaningful link descriptions e.g. 'The Web Services Unit provides information about website accessibility.' Or 'More information about accessibility can be found through the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative' (opens in a new window)    

For further information and resources please visit the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (opens in a new window)

Multimedia Captioning and Transcripts

Just as images aren't available to people who cannot see, audio files aren't available to those who cannot hear. If using any multimedia which relies on sound (e.g. videos or audio files), text transcripts should be available to make the information accessible to those who are deaf, hard of hearing as well as to search engines and other technologies which cannot hear.

All multimedia should also be appropriately captioned with a meaningful description of the content.

Page Organisation

The hierarchy of information on a web page plays an important role in the access of information from assistive devices, usability and search engine optimisation. Heading 1 or H1 headings are in built into the page and will automatically be the name of the page you have created. This means that the page name should be a short but suitable description of the page contents.
If a page is correctly labelled with an appropriate heading, it will increase usability, allow technologies like screen readers to prioritise information and be recognised easily within search engines. H1 headings should not be used throughout the rest of the page.

The rest of the page contents should be strategically arranged using H2 and H3 headings to distinguish the hierarchy of information.