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Accessible Web Design

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Web Accessibility Standards and Guidelines

Why standards are important.
Standards and guidelines explain the what, why, and how of making web content accessible. Web content comprised of text, images, sound, video, and other media includes markup languages or code to define structure, presentation, and alternatives for people with disabilities. Accessibility standards and guidelines are documented as follows:

• What: A statement of the access issue to be addressed by the standard and guideline
• Why: Explanation as to why the accessibility issue is important
• How: A short statement of how access can be successfully achieved
• Known Issues: Any known concerns not fully addressed by the standard and guideline
• AccessVT: guideline reference
  WCAG 1.0 guideline reference(s) when applicable
  Section 508 standard reference(s) when applicable

Standards and Guidelines and Access Performance Criteria

These include:

1. Standards and Guidelines - the procedures that will implement university access policies for web accessibility. These procedures require the use of development and maintenance tools and techniques that validate markup language (coding) and evaluate website accessibility throughout the lifetime of the website or web-based application.
2. Access Performance Criteria - a concise list of functional goals that must be achieved for a website or web-based application to be considered accessible.

Individuals with disabilities use a variety of abilities, access techniques, and assistive technologies to utilize web-based information. From a practical standpoint, accessible websites must therefore be compliant with accessibility standards and guidelines, as well as being compatible with adaptive or assistive technologies. From this perspective, the following functional performance criteria can be used to judge whether accessibility is effectively achieved.

All information and functionality presented in a website or web-based applications shall be available in a manner that is:

• Compliant with university supported browsers
• Completely operable with system font sizes and colors set by the user
• Completely operable using a keyboard only
• Completely operable using leading screen magnification software
• Completely operable using leading screen or synthesized speech reading software
• Completely operable using leading speech recognition software
• Completely understandable without sound
• Completely understandable without color
• Clearly and consistently navigable
• Unlikely to trigger photosensitive seizures

External References based on Virginia Tech Access Policies

Standards and Guidelines and Access Performance Criteria are user based and technology dependent and will be updated as user needs and technologies evolve and change. The web technologies that are considered relevant for the current standards and guidelines are aligned with external references that include:

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 1.0 Table of Contents for the W3C Recommendation as of 5-May-1999
• U.S. Access Board Section 508 Web Standards and Guide to the (Full) Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology

Virginia Tech web accessibility standards and guidelines are designed to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Federal Section 508 requirements of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Virginia Tech meets and/or exceeds the minimum requirements of WCAG version 1.0 Level "A" conformance by incorporating most "Priority 1" checkpoints and a number of WCAG "Priority 2" and "Priority 3" checkpoints. AccessVT guidelines are also cross-referenced to WCAG 1.0 guidelines and Section 508 standards that have comparable accessibility objectives.

Format of Web Accessibility Standards and Guidelines

Virginia Tech web accessibility standards and guidelines are formatted in two versions. They are:

• Default Version is organized for reading and printing by section.
  Navigation is by Table of Contents, Quick Reference, and the use of previous or next section arrows. The default version permits you to focus on and print one section of the university guidelines at a time. Future editions will have interactive training materials.
• Booklet Version is organized for reading and printing as one document.
  Navigation is by Table of Contents, Quick Reference, and by Go to Table of Contents links. The booklet version can be read sequentially (top-to-bottom) by scrolling or by use of the Go to Table of Contents link at the end of each section. The booklet version can be printed in its entirety.

Navigational note: The use of hypertext links in the Table of Contents and Quick Reference sections will navigate only within their respective versions, default or booklet, unless specified otherwise.

Table of Contents

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Copyrights and Permissions: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 of the Web Access Initiative (WAI) are a product of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Copyright © 1994-2003. Portions of guidelines reproduced with additional permissions from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Illinois, and the State of Maine with W3C Copyright © reserved.