Keeping your website accessible to people with disabilities
Accessibility is not a suggestion, it is a requirement.
It is required by Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA) that all public university sites are accessible.
“The Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA) requires Illinois agencies and universities to ensure that their web sites, systems, and other information technologies are accessible to people with disabilities. While the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act require the State to address accessibility in general, the IITAA requires the State to establish and follow specific, functional accessibility standards and to address accessibility proactively.”
-from the Illinois Department of Human Services website
http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=32765
In order to comply with the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA), it is imperative that all websites related to SIUC follow certain standards. IITAA Implementation Guidelines for Web-Based Information and Applications: http://www.dhs.state.il.us/IITAA/IITAAWebImplementationGuidelines.html
Examples of how to make and keep your web site accessible:
- Each image should have an alt tag containing a description of the image.
- A Header1 (<h1></h1>) tag should be on every page.
- Label tags are needed for all form elements.
- If scripts are included on your page, the language must be declared in the script tag.
- The language on your page should be declared in the <html> tag:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
Validate Your Website
There are many resources to validate you web site for accessibility. Below are websites that allow you to enter your web address and they will create a report of any errors.
- Functional Accessibility Evaluator 1.0 (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- W3C Markup Validation Service
- Mozilla Firefox browser with many accessibility tool add-ons