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About Accessibility
Missouri has adopted the provisions of Section 508 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 regarding accessibility of information technology for individuals with disabilities in Section 161.935 of the Missouri Revised Statutes.
This means that website content shall be accessible to people with visual, hearing, or physical disabilities.
Details
The following are some best practices to help to assure that content is accessible.
Headings and titles
- Use hierarchical page headings (H1, H2, H3, H4) so keyboard interaction and screen readers can navigate content.
- Include row/column headers on tables and don't use nested tables so screen readers can better navigate table content.
Meta data
- Add alt tags to images, graphs, and charts to describe content for screen readers.
- Define decorative images that don't relate to content as "decorative image."
- Label form inputs with clear names, and use appropriate tags.
Text
- Use bold or italic or images for emphasis instead of colored text to help color-blind and low-vision users.
- Use bulleted or numbered list styles to denote list structure to help screen readers understand content structure.
- Use capitalization sparingly, it can be visually difficult to read, and it causes a screen reader to read each individual letter instead of the word.
- Content should be cleanly navigated with keyboard interactions left to right / top to bottom.
Context
- Use link text that describes what you are linking to so readers can scan and anticipate where they will go when clicking a link.
- Text, media, or activities from an external website or resource should also be accessible.
- Do not rely on references to shape, size, or position to describe content because screen readers will not understand.
Multimedia
- Include descriptive titles and labels for instructional and interactive content.
- Supply audio with a transcript, and video with captioning for hearing impaired users.
- Don't use images text in images to avoid readability issues.