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Quick accessibility guidelines

Follow the guidelines regarding HTML mark-up and style sheets. Use the latest standards and recommendations for creating online material. Use structural mark-up correctly and separate structure from presentation. Validate your code.

Allow user control over presentation by using style sheets for presentational mark-up, such as font-sizes, colours, margins, etc. but make sure that the page works without style sheet.

Provide a text alternatives for all non-text elements, especially when they convey important information. Provide descriptions for graphics, text-links for image maps, text-only versions for multimedia presentations, scripts and applets, transcripts of audio presentations, captions for movies.

Don't use colour to convey information.

Provide consistency in layout, presentation, navigation, colour schemes.

Present content in a clear, simple and jargon-free language. Make text scannable.

Identify the primary language of the text and all changes within.

Make it possible to navigate your site using the keyboard instead of a mouse.

Use tables correctly (for data, not layout) and associate table headers with cells and label rows and columns.

Avoid frames or title them correctly and clarify frame relationships.

Make sure online forms are accessible with assistive technologies.

Don't cause the screen to flicker.

Make sure all content is accessible without the necessity for plug-ins, scripts or applets.

Provide a method for users to skip repetitive information.

When a timed response is required, make sure the user is made aware of this and given sufficient time or the option to indicate that more time is required.

Test your site with a variety of computers, browsers and input devices.

If you can't make a page accessible, provide an alternate accessible version. When updating content, update the alternative versions as well.

Learn more :

Detailed instructions on how to comply with these guidelines can be found in the following chapter : Accessibility Techniques.

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