Did you know?
When you make your web pages accessible to people with disabilities, you make them accessible to people using handheld devices and to search engines.
Learn more
Visit WebAIM's Introduction to Web Accessibility.
Download a free demonstration version of JAWS, a popular screenreader, at JAWS for Windows.
View webpages without the stylesheet or images.
In Firefox, go to View > Page Style > No style.
Does the page still make sense? Is the information in logical order?
Web Accessibility
NIU web pages must conform to the Illinois Web Accessibility Standards, which state that web pages must be accessible to people with vision, hearing, and other disabilities. Besides the Accessibility Standards, this site has detailed information on how to make web pages accessible.
Accessibility features in the NIU template
- Use of text for navigation buttons
- Skip navigation links
- Consistent navigation scheme (About Us is generally first and Contact Us and Home are generally last)
- Templates have been reviewed on both Mac and PC platforms, a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, a screen reader (JAWS), and a web-enabled phone
- Pages are functional without the use of a mouse
- Text is scalable using the control CTRL+scroll feature in Windows XP
- Alt text is coded for every graphic
Making page content accessible
- Headings - Start every page with an <h2> heading tag. Subsequent headings should be <h3>, <h4>, etc.
Use heading tags for headings, not <p><b> or some other combination of tags.
- Links - Make links understandable out of context.
- Font size - The font sizes have been set by the university style sheet. Don't use the <font> tag for anything.
- Underline - Don't use the <u> tag. Underlined words look like links.
- Alt text - Include alt text with all images. It should give a brief description of the image. If the image is decorative, use an empty alt text (alt="").
- Color - Don't use color to convey information. Don't change the color of text.
- Animation - Don't use animation or blinking graphics.
- Multi-media - Any information conveyed by multi-media must also be conveyed in text.
