Considerations for designing an accessible web site, including discussion on web site conventions, navigation, color, text, and layout.
Download Web Axe Episode 34 (Design Considerations for Accessibility)
[Transcript for Web Axe 34]
Stick to Conventions
- Search upper right
- Global navigation across top
- Sub navigation on sides
- Icons
Navigation Considerations
- Skip navigation
- Indicate visited pages, current page
- Use breadcrumbs where possible
Color Considerations
- Ensure enough color contrast
- Light on dark, or dark on light?
- If you change the color of an anchor state, change them all
- Never use color to convey information
Layout Considerations
- If you have a low vision/large text style sheet, convert layout to one column
- Pay attention to if it is obvious you can scroll downward or not
- If Article is broken up between several pages, provide a link to a single page with the whole article for easy printing
- Try and design for 760px minimum width
Text Considerations
- Sans-serif fonts are generally easier to read on a screen
- Print serif fonts are, but light reflects off of paper where screen illuminates light
- Text Sizing
- Ensure font can be enlarged with out breaking the design
- Headers should be larger than regular text (to indicate more importance)
- Fonts should be decent size, not everyone knows how to resize text
Other Considerations
- Limit the use of Flash
- Print Style Sheets
- Graphical buttons should be text with graphical backgrounds (for sizing without pixelation)
- Include an access guide, or site help
- No flickering
- Audio–plan for text-only version and links
- Video–plan for real-time captioning
