Accessibility
Charles Sturt University is committed to providing timely, accurate and accessible study and administration materials to students with disabilities. In particular, the University will endeavour to ensure that all of the web pages on both www.csu.edu.au, and through online.csu.edu.au are accessible to all users.
The Basics
1. What are the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines"?
The "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" are a W3C specification providing guidance on accessibility of Web sites for people with disabilities. They have been developed by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative.
The specification contains fourteen guidelines which are general principles of accessible design. Each guideline is associated with one or more checkpoints describing how to apply that guideline to particular features of web pages.
People with different kinds of disabilities can experience difficulty using the Web due to a combination of barriers in the information on web pages, and barriers in the "user agents" (browsers, multimedia players, or assistive technologies such as screen readers or voice recognition).
The following people can experience these difficulties:-
- People with a visual impairment.
- People who are blind.
- People with a physical disability.
- People with hearing impairment.
- People who are colour blind.
- People with a cognitive impairment (such as dyslexia).
- People with a different reading level.
2. What are the "priorities" and "conformance levels"?
Each checkpoint is assigned one of three priority levels, assigned by the Working Group based on the checkpoint's impact on accessibility.
- Priority one is for checkpoints that a developer must satisfy otherwise some groups of people will be unable to access information on a site. A web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint.
- Priority two a developer should satisfy or else it will be very difficult to access information. A web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint.
- Priority three a developer may satisfy otherwise, some people will find it difficult to access information. A web content developer may address this checkpoint if appropriate.
The specification defines three "conformance levels" to facilitate reference by other organizations. Conformance level "Single-A" includes priority one checkpoints; "Double-A" includes priority one and two; "Triple-A" includes priority one, two and three.
3. Quick tips (WAI Website)
Correct syntax will help eliminate a number of accessibility problems since software can process well-formed documents more easily.
- An automated accessibility validation tool such as TAW
- An HTML validation service such as the W3C HTML Validation Service
- A style sheets validation service such as the W3C CSS Validation Service
- Images & 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 organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
- Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.
- Scripts, applets, & 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. Summarize.
- Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines.