Web page accessibility guidelines

Designing for accessibility is a vital part of web design. There are several reasons for accessible design, including avoiding discrimination, differences between browsers, and improving search engine ranking. The Disability Discrimination Act makes it a legal requirement for websites to be usable regardless of disability

Guidelines on accessible design, including writing text for the web, making images accessible, and page layout describe both the principles behind the guidelines, and ways to write pages that meet the guidelines, either using Dreamweaver, or writing HTML code directly.

There is a University policy on web accessibility, which requires all existing official sites to comply with the Priority 1 Recommendations, and all new official sites to comply with the Priority 2 Recommendations.

As well as these guidelines, there are several external resources describing techniques for accessible design, and the web's official specifications and standards. Many tools to help you write accessible pages are also available.

The CIS web team offers several services (mostly free of charge) to members of the University interested in writing accessible sites. Training courses provided by CIS on web topics include dealing with accessibility issues as an integral part of the course.