Website Accessibility

NIU web pages must conform to the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act, which states that web pages must be accessible to people with disabilities.

Making page content accessible

• Headings - Headings give an importance level and size to text. Start every page with Heading 2 tag. Subsequent headings should be Heading 3, Heading 4, etc. Do Not Bold or emphasize to create headings -- use Heading formating.
• Links - Make links understandable out of context.
• Underline - Don't underline text. Underlined words look like links.
• Images / Alt text - Include an alternate text with all images. It should give a brief description of the image.
• Multi-media - Any information conveyed by multi-media must also be conveyed in text.

PDF's on the NIU website

PDF's (Portable Document Format) are often created from a Microsoft Word document. Learn how to create accessible pdf's from Word 2007 >>

Did you know?

When you make your web pages accessible to people with disabilities, you make them accessible to people using handheld devices and search engines.

Learn more

• Introduction to Web Accessibility
• GoogleBlog on Accessibility 
• JAWS Screen Reader Demo
• Functional Accessibility Evaluator