Web accessibility guidelines
Summary: The University has a legal obligation to provide accessible content and web pages. There are techniques and processes to help this happen.
When creating web pages based on the University templates, University staff are expected to:
- Use standard XML-based structural markup to denote content changes, such as lists and headings
- Add alt text and captions to all images.
- Insert titles to provide additional information about links. Use acronym, abbreviation and other tags to explain language and concepts.
- Ensure the page uses valid code and style sheets.
- Include table headers and summaries for tables that display data.
- Label all forms, use explicit associations with input elements and provide instructional text to help with searching and submitting data.
- Check all web content for compliance with World Wide Web Consortium guidelines.
The Web design are undertaking an accessibility review. This review will evaluate both our websites and applications. More information is available on the accessibility review page.
Accessibility of templates
The web templates have been built to high standards of Accessibility, exceeding the legislative requirements.
In order to maintain this standard, web developers are expected to build pages and sites that comply with at least WCAG 1.0 Priority 1. In most cases, this simply means:
- providing text alternatives to images
- not relying on colour alone to convey information
- using html markup in the way it was intended:
- using tables for data, not layout
- using tags such as list and blockquote appropriately
- ensuring pages work without javascript
- writing clear, well structured documents
- using headings appropriately
- labelling links clearly
Tools
Resources
- Accessibility on the University of Melbourne web site
- World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative
- WebAIM introduction to Web Accessibility
- WebAIM principles of accessible design
- Designing accessible instructional media (guide to making accessible video media). Provided by the National Disability Coordination Officer Program. Training CDs available from g.kerridge@ballarat.edu.au.