Accessibility standards

All official university websites must meet Section 508 accessibility requirements. We strongly recommend doing your utmost to provide as accessible an experience as possible for your users.

Section 508 checklist

All organizational homepages - and within reason all other pages - must meet Section 508 accessibility compliance. See the basic checklist below to help make your site more accessible.

  • Alternative text: Images and image maps should have alternative text in either the alt or longdesc attribute. Images that are purely decorative (such as spacers or drop shadows) may contain empty alt attributes.
  • Alternative content: When interactive Flash or video content is used, alternative content should be provided using the <noembed> tag.
  • Form labels: Provide correctly addressed <label> tags for easier access to all form content.
  • Captions & transcripts: Video content should have synchronized captions. Audio content should have captions or transcripts available as alternatives.
  • Color & contrast: Colors should not be the only thing used to convey information. (For example, required elements on a form may be colored red and marked with an asterisk, but not just colored red.) There should be sufficient contrast between colors used.
  • Headers in data tables: Use the <th> tag to denote header cells in both columns and rows of data tables. Provide contextually appropriate and detailed captions for data tables.
  • Frame titles: Use the title attribute to describe the content or purpose of each frame.
  • Alternatives for iframes: Provide alternative content (often a link to the individual page within an iframe) when iframes are used within a site.
  • Avoid screen flickers: Avoid creating graphics, video, or interactive Flash media that cause the screen flicker and could induce seizures.
  • Text-only alternative: Provide a text-only alternative to your site. See our Text Alternatives section for more details.
  • Keyboard accessible scripting: Script-based interface functionality should never rely solely on mouse interaction.
  • Plug-in availability: When plug-ins are used for content within the site, you should link to where the plug-in can be downloaded. Even better, provide content in an accessible form without requiring a plug-in (for instance, an HTML or text document rather than a PDF or Powerpoint file).
  • Skip navigation: Provide links to skip over repetitive navigation within a site.
  • Control of timed content: When content has a time limit (before an automatic redirect or submission), the user should be notified and given sufficient time to indicate that more time is required.