Web standards and guidelines
Accessibility: Coding and testing
Testing websites for Web Accessibility Initiative compliance
'A' Standard compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative is the bare minimum acceptable. Learning and Teaching Scotland aims to comply with at least the Double-A standard. This means that developers should ensure that sites contain no Priority 1 or Priority 2 errors.
Manual checking
No automated testing tool can ever fully determine whether you have a WAI compliant site. Manual checks will always be required.
Print off the WAI checklist of checkpoints for web content accessibility and assess your web pages against each of the checkponts. To satisfy Learning and Teaching Scotland standards, the table should contain either 'yes' or 'not applicable' responses for Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints. Pages that fail should be reworked until they pass or an acceptable workaround can be put in place. Developers will usually find HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 useful for examples of code that can be used.Web Accessibility Initiative - 10 quick tips
- Images and animations: Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.
- Image maps: Use the client-side map and text for hotspots.
- Multimedia: Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions of video.
- Hypertext links: Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid 'click here.'
- Page organisation: Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
- Graphs and charts: Summarise or use the longdesc attribute.
- Scripts, applets, and plug-ins: Provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.
- Frames: Use the noframes element and meaningful titles.
- Tables: Make line-by-line reading sensible. Summarise.
- Check your work: Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines.