Website Accessibility Guidelines

  • To ensure the SWWC website is accessible and meets requirements, please follow the guidelines below. If you have questions, please contact Shelly Maes at shelly.maes@swwc.org. 

Page Titles

    • Make sure your page title is meaningful.
    • Use “show app name on page” as the page title to ensure consistency across the website.

Page Content

    • Use the default font and size.
    • When pasting text, use “paste without formatting” or "remove formatting".
    • If your font doesn't look like the rest of the pages, clear the formatting by using the Tx in the toolbar (clear formatting).
    • Black is the best color for text. The use of colored text should be limited.
    • Underline should only be used for hyperlinks.
    • Avoid complicated words and long sentences. Speak to an upper elementary reading level.
    • Do NOT use tables for page layout.

Page Layout

    • Do NOT use tables for page layout
    • To format pages, utilize the page layouts options. When on your page in the Site Manager, go to Layouts in the right sidebar to change the layout.

URLs

    • Use the default hyperlink settings to indicate a link (automatic color and underline)
    • Hyperlinks must be descriptive. Do not use “click here” or “read more” or “https://www.swwc.org/site/default.aspx?DomainID=165”.
    • Link targets to either open in the same window or a new window

Documents

  • Limit the number of documents you add to the website, as they all must be accessible before uploading. Consider the following when deciding to add a document to the website:
    • Is posting the document/information a mandate from the state or does it need to be posted due to a law?
    • Can information in the document be added directly to a webpage instead of adding a link to open a document?

Images

    • Be sure alt text is meaningful.
    • If the image is a link, describe the destination in the alt text.
    • Do not use flashing or flickering text or animated text.
    • Make sure all images are free to use and not restricted by copyrights.

Videos

    • If you have a video on your page, make sure it is captioned.
    • Use embedresponsively.com to get a responsive embed code for your YouTube video. Use the Embed Code app to put the video on the page.

Lists and Columns

    • Use bullet or number list styles.
    • Do not manually type characters to create lists (hyphens, dashes, etc.).
    • Use column feature for columns – do NOT use tabs to create columns.

Tables

    • Don’t use tables for page layout.
    • Make sure the table has a logical reading order from left to right, top to bottom.
    • Avoid blank or merged cells.
    • Ensure table has a “header row” designated in table properties (Table Tools>Layout>choose “repeat header rows” in data section and uncheck “all row to break across pages”).