Complying with all of the ADA issues can be difficult when you are first exposed to the many rules. Part of that is because there are many different aspects to accessibility and some rules may apply to specific areas while others apply to all areas of accessibility including those who have no issues in any of the following areas:
- Vision
- Hearing
- Neurodiversity
- Learning
- Mobility
- Mental Health
This post provides links to two documents that will help you to quickly understand the most important accessibility features that affect your documents and web pages. Keep in mind that many of the accessibility requirements are the same for both web pages and documents so that once you learn what you must do for a webpage, you also know what to do for a PDF for example. This document and any of my other posts here are not meant to be an all-inclusive list of accessibility issues. In fact, there are many concerns that relate to other factors in the workplace which will not be addressed here.
In past posts, I talked about many ADA related issues for your web pages. I was asked if these guidelines only apply to web page content. The simple answer is that any information, no matter the media, must be accessible even though the specific factors that must be considered might vary from one media type to another. For example, a printed brochure does not have alt-text when you hover over an image because you cannot hover over a brochure. However, providing alternate blocks of text that accompany images on a brochure or transcripts and closed captioning for videos or audio files is required even when posting videos on services like YouTube or placing videos in a podcast. In fact, every media type has its own specific accessibility features. While I have been focusing on those issues related primarily to web pages and documents accessed through the web, keep in mind any other ways you present information to the public may have its own individual concerns.
The following two documents focus specifically on the web page and other documents (PDFs, DOCXs, XLSXs, and others) accessed through the web. You may want to hang them on your office wall as a reminder of the things you have to consider when creating your web pages and other documents you make available through those pages.
One Page Accessibility Guidlines/
Accessibility Tip Sheet from West Corp (by Kathleen Osterwise)
Being accessible means accessible to everyone. Check out a few of the links from Microsoft that illustrate their commitment to accessibility:
Microsoft is Serious about Accessibility
Microsoft Accessibility Commitment Video
One last point for this post. Microsoft has worked hard over the last couple of years to make all of its products accessible to all users. They have also added functionality to help you when creating accessible documents when using their tools. In a prior post, I talked about how to use Adobe Acrobat PRO DC to check the accessibility of your PDFs before uploading them to the web site. Next time, I will show how easy it is to check the accessibility of documents you create in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Powerpoint before you create those PDFs.