Accessibility

All Humboldt Web sites must comply with these 19 checkpoints in order to meet minimum web accessibility standards.

More information about web accessibility, how to interpret the checkpoints, and the legal history pertaining to this policy can be found on the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) website

Definition of a Reasonably
Accessible Web Site:

A reasonably accessible website is one that satisfies all of the following checkpoints. These checkpoints were taken from the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Priority 1 checkpoints as specified in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and the Section 508 Web-Based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications.

Checkpoints:

  1. Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via “alt”, “longdesc”, or in element content). This includes: 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.
  2. Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.
  3. Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document’s text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions).
  4. 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.
  5. Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.
  6. Until user agents allow users to control flickering, avoid causing the screen to flicker.
  7. Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site’s content.
  8. Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map.
  9. Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.
  10. For data tables, identify row and column headers.
  11. For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.
  12. Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation.
  13. When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.
  14. 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.
  15. When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.
  19. If, after 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.

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