Checklist for Accessibility

Accessibility Checklist Overview

The following is meant to provide a basic checklist to ensure the most common and most important accessibility considerations have been taken into account.

Text formatting

• Use “Styles” for formatting headings and body text
• Only have one level 1 heading per page
• Be logical in heading order — don’t skip levels as you move more specific.
• Don’t let color or visuals be the only thing to communicate information (colored text needs to be marked as different by something other than color, headings need to be styled differently, not just look different in font size.)
• Avoid italics when not part of documentation style

Images

• Include alt text when the image is communicating something or illustrating something
• If an image is decorative, mark it as decorative.
• Long explanatory text (such as that after an infographic or complex graphic) can be included after the image or separate from the image rather than formatted as “alt text” specifically.
• Again, don’t let visuals be the only way information is communicated.

Links

• Links should be descriptive — that is, avoid just putting long URLs in text, but have the link labeled as what it least too whenever it is practical. Sometimes a short link that is spelled out may be useful, but those should be the exceptions.
• Don’t use the word “link” in the link description.

Tables

• Don’t use tables for layout purposes — use them to present data.
• Mark the first row or first column or both as headings/headers.
• Don’t leave cells blank.
• Don’t include split or merged cells.

Closed Captions

• Include closed captions or transcripts for any audio or audio/visual media.
• Think practically about how much text is on the screen at once or how fast the captions move (people often read more slowly than they hear).