If you upload or publish content on a University of Guelph website, you will need to familiarize yourself with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 [1]. Once you understand the principles and guidelines that help ensure accessible web content, you can start to incorporate those guidelines into your web content publishing workflow. The University of Guelph has developed accessibility procedures and practices for web content creators [2]. Please review these guidelines and incorporate them into your workflow.

Register for a SiteImprove Web Accessibility Course

Visit SiteImprove Academy [3] to register for a SiteImprove web accessibility certification course. These courses are free for anyone from the University of Guelph.

Monitor your Website for Accessibility Issues

The University of Guelph monitors the accessibility of its websites using an online web governance service called SiteImprove. Once a site is added to SiteImprove, the service will check the site for accessibility issues, broken links, and spelling mistakes that can be found through automated means. If you would like to monitor the content of your University of Guelph website using SiteImprove, contact the University of Guelph Digital Accessibility Resource Centre [4]. Be ready to provide the URL of the website you wish to monitor and the name of the department associated with the website.

Incorporate Accessibility into your Workflow

General Checklist

1. Did you organize your web content with properly structured and descriptive headings [5]?
2. Did you add alternative text [6] to images that convey information?
3. Are your links [7] descriptive?
4. Are your tables [8] used for data rather than layout purposes?
5. Does every web page have a meaningful title [9]?
6. Is there any information in the content that would be difficult to understand if the colours [10] were in greyscale?

Audio & Video Checklist

1. Do your audio [11] and video [12] files have descriptive text transcripts?
2. Do your videos have captions?
3. Have you made sure audio and video files do not start automatically when a user opens the web page?

Document Checklist

1. Can the content be uploaded as a web page instead of a document [13]?
2. Can you request an accessible version of the document prior to posting it online?
3. Have you reviewed the DARC Document Accessibility Resources [14]?
4. Have you visited the Accessible Digital Office Document Project (ADOD) [15] for additional guidance?