Web Site Accessibility Checklist

Find out if your site meets W3C accessibility guidelines

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February 11, 2005

Editor's Note:

Web Site Accessibility Checklist created by Susan Grossman, owner of Finishing First , using materials from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Is your Web site usable by someone who is blind? What about by a person who doesn't have the use of her hands? What if the user is cognitively impaired? How can you tune your site to be readable by everyone?

If your site can't be viewed by anyone with a disability, you're excluding a huge segment of the population. Usingthe Web Site Accessibility Checklist (below), you can determine your Web site's level of accessibility and prioritize which areas you need to improve first.

The checklist will help you determine whether your site can accommodate screen readers for blind or low-vision users, voice-activated or speaking browsers, and other tools that are helping to make the Web an easier place for everyone to visit.

Your first step is to print out the checklist, go through it, and mark yes, no, or N/A (not applicable) as each question applies to your Web site. The list is divided into priorities, so once you've finished filling out the sheet, you can determine where to focus your attention first.

Priority 1 Checkpoints

Use this checklist to evaluate the accessibility of your Web site for Priority 1. In General (Priority 1)

In General (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via " alt","longdesc," or in element content). Non-text elements include: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ASCII art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video.
Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example, from context or markup.
Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions).
Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document.
Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.
Avoid including any effects that cause the screen to flicker.
Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for your site's content.
If you use images and image maps (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map.
Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps, except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.
If you use tables (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
For data tables, identify row and column headers.
For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.
If you use frames (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation.
If you use applets and scripts (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.
If you use multimedia (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.
For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation.
And, if all else fails (Priority 1)	Yes	No	N/A
If, after your best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent information (or functionality), and is updated as often as the inaccessible (original) page.

Priority 2 Checkpoints

Use this checklist to evaluate the accessibility of your Web site for Priority 2. In General (Priority 2)

In General (Priority 2)	Yes	No	N/A
Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when someone with a color deficit views it or when viewed on a black-and-white screen. (Priority 2 for images, Priority 3 for text).
When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images to convey information.
Create documents that use proper grammar.
Use style sheets to control layout and presentation.
Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values.
Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification.
Mark up lists and list items properly.
Mark up quotations. Do not use quotation markup for formatting effects, such as indentation.
Ensure that dynamic content is accessible, or provide an alternative presentation or page.
Until user agents allow users to control blinking, avoid causing content to blink (instead, change presentation at a regular rate).
Until user agents can easily stop pages from refreshing, do not create periodically auto-refreshing pages.
Until user agents can stop auto-redirect, do not use markup to redirect pages automatically. Instead, configure the server to perform redirects.
Until there is a way to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user.
Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for a task and use the latest versions when supported.
Avoid deprecated features of W3C technologies.
Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate.
Clearlyidentify the target of each link.
Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.
Provide information about the general layout of a site (e.g., a site map or table of contents).
Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner.
If you use tables (Priority 2)	Yes	No	N/A
Do not use tables for layout, unless the table makes sense when linearized. Otherwise, if the table does not make sense, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version).
If using a table for layout, don't use any structural markup for the purpose of visual formatting.
If you use frames (Priority 2)	Yes	No	N/A
Describe the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other if it is not obvious by frame titles alone.
If you use forms (Priority 2)	Yes	No	N/A
Until user agents support explicit associations between labels and form controls, ensure that the label is properly positioned (for all form controls with implicitly associated labels).
Associate labels explicitly with their controls.
If you use applets and scripts (Priority 2)	Yes	No	N/A
For scripts and applets, ensure that event handlers are input device-independent.
Until you can allow users to freeze moving content, avoid movement in pages.
Make programmatic elements such as scripts and applets directly accessible or compatible with assistive technologies (Priority 1 if functionality is important and not presented elsewhere, otherwise Priority 2.)
Ensure that any element with its own interface can be operated in a device-independent manner.
For scripts, specify logical event handlers, rather than device-dependent event handlers.

Priority 3 Checkpoints

Use this checklist to evaluate the accessibility of your Web site for Priority 3.

In General (Priority 3)	Yes	No	N/A
Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.
Identify the primary natural language of a document.
Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.
Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.
Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links.
Provide information so that users may receive documents according to their preferences (language, content type, etc.).
Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism.
Group-related links, identify the group (for user agents), and, until user agents do so, provide a way to bypass the group.
If search functions are provided, enable different types of searches for different skill levels and preferences.
Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, and lists.
Provide information about document collections (i.e., documents comprising multiple pages.).
Provide a means to skip over multi-line ASCII art.
Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations where they will facilitate comprehension of the page.
Create a style of presentation that is consistent across pages.
If you use images and image maps (Priority 3)	Yes	No	N/A
Until user agents render text equivalents for client-side image map links, provide redundant text links for each active region of a client-side image map.
If you use tables (Priority 3)	Yes	No	N/A
Provide summaries for tables.
Provideabbreviations for header labels.
Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render side-by-side text correctly, provide a linear text alternative (on the current page or some other page) for all tables that lay out text in parallel, word-wrapped columns.
If you use forms (Priority 3)	Yes	No	N/A
Until user agents handle empty controls correctly, include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas.

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