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GODORT Best Practices for LibGuides

Accessibility Guidelines

When we talk about accessibility, we're talking about following four general principles fleshed out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These principles can be remembered as POUR - Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust:

  1. Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.

    • This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can't be invisible to all of their senses)

  2. Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable.

    • This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform)

  3. Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.

    • This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding)

  4. Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

    • This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible)

If we follow these guidelines, all of our users, regardless of condition will have meaningful access to our documents, LibGuides and web pages. 

For further reading:

General Best Practices in Accessibility

Whether you are developing content in a document, LibGuide or webpage, there are a few things you should always keep in mind. 

Meaningful Alt-Text for Images

All images that convey meaning concerning your writing (a chart, people at an event, illustration of process) should have text that conveys that meaning to people who use a screen reader to access the web. Usually this means putting something in the "alt-text" property of an image. 

DO

  • Summarize charts. I.e. "Chart showing reports of fraud jumped 400% between 2001 and 2020."
  • Provide an alt-text or caption to an "picture text" quotes you use. Just use one or the other so the screen reader user isn't hit with the same sentence twice.
  • Check any autogenerated alt-text in document creation programs. Documents with autogenerated alt-text will pass automated checks yet still be meaningless to the screen reader user - like where the program inserts the image file name or says "group of people" who need to be named if they're recognizable to your audience.
  • Add alt-text to organizational logs. Just say "Logo of A.L.A." rather than describing the look of the logo. Unless it's a history of the logo.
  • Put periods in acronyms when they are mean to be spoken as individual letters, so "A.L.A." Not "ALA" 

DON'T

  • Put "image", "photo", "picture" into your alt text. Screen readers will read "Image" out loud when they encounter and image. So you don't need to. 
  • Add alt text to purely decorative figures unrelated to your post. Just set it to null ("") or mark as decorative figure. Or consider doing without. 

 

There are two situations where you should not put text in an alt-text field:

  1. When the image is purely decorative and conveys no useful information to the view (like flowers or music notes unrelated to your article)
  2. When a caption or other explanatory text clearly expresses what is in the image. 

In these two cases, you still want alt-text, but you want to set it to "Null." In HTML, this would be alt="". In Word and other document production programs, you might see "mark as decorative figure"

Consider reading the article below to learn more about creating meaningful alt text.

Meaningful Link Text

According to the experts at WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind), "[A]s a general rule, links should be as concise as possible without sacrificing meaning." They also suggest link text that can be understood outside of context. So it is best to avoid phrases like "read more", "click here", "more" and so on. 

Lately, best practice is to avoid using URLs as link texts because screen readers will read the entire URL to the user. Some feel that when it serves the purpose of establishing the authority of a link, the URL text may be used. 

Another important best practice is to avoid using the same link text over and over for different links. This can create problems for two sets of users: 1) people with cognitive issues who may have trouble figuring out which link goes where and 2) people using screen readers that generate link tables. In this second case, the link table could potentially consist of the same phrase seven or eight times. 

For other tips on creating meaningful link text, consider reading one of the articles below:

Test Your Work

It is important to test the accessibility of your documents, LibGuides and web pages. And these tests ideally will be manual as well as automated. Automated accessibility checkers are improving, but still only catch about 1/3 of accessibility errors. 

Resources

Best Practices and Resources for Accessible LibGuides

The suggestions below owe a large debt to LibGuides Accessibility Reference - Creating Accessible Guides, created by the University Libraries of the University of Oklahoma.

  1. Create a "friendly URL" for your guide and any sub pages. 
  2. Show all subpages in side navigation.
  3. Only put contact information and quick links in the side boxes. Screenreaders will not read from left to right, they will read a visitor all of the boxes in column 1 from top to bottom, then all of the boxes in column 2 top to bottom.
  4. Do not do redirects as guide pages (that is, make a page on your guide redirect to some URL off of your guide)
  5. Avoid using the page description field, as this usually only appears during mouseovers, which renders them inaccessible to many screenreaders.
  6. Create page titles that are useful and accessible (a screenreader should be able to read every character in the title)
  7. Use SpringShare's built in tools for lists and tables. 

Additional Resources

Best Practices for Uploaded Documents

Part of a LibGuide or website's accessibility is the accessibility of documents uploaded to them. This section points you at resources you can use to make your minutes, presentations and other documents accessible before you send them to the Technology Committee for posting. This will aid in timely posting of your documents.

Additional Resources