Things You'll Need:
- A website
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Step 1
Be aware of the ways that your users can get your content. A blind person can understand an image if the browser reads alternative text aloud. A deaf person can understand an audio file if there is a text script. Animations can be described in text. The scene in live webcams can be described in text. Text is always accessible, but images, audio, sound effects, animations and image maps are not. You must make them accessible by adding text alternatives.
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Step 2
To make data charts accessible, add labels, captions, summaries and ROW, COL and HEADER tags within the table itself to make navigation in the table more comprehensible.
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Step 3
For audio recordings, link to a text transcript. If you've ever watched close captioning on TV, you know that a text transcript includes the name of the speaker and brief descriptions of other sounds like applause or laughter.
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Step 4
For sounds effects that indicate something the user must know, for example an error filling out a form, add text that will provide the same error message.
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Step 5
For live webcams, tell the user what the webcam scene is. Tell them how often the image reloads automatically too.
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Step 6
For images such as photos or any content shown in an image, provide alt text describing the content. If the image is very complex, link to a longdesc file that describes the content fully. The alt text for an image should be descriptive. Something like alt="image" is not good enough. For images that should be ignored as content, put them in the CSS as background images. If that is impossible, leave the alt text null, as in alt="".
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Step 7
For images that include links, for example thumbnail images, include alt text that describes the purpose of the link.
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Step 8
For image maps, include alt text for the overall image as well as for each link area within the image map.
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Step 9
For iframes, if the iframe contains relevant content (rather than an ad or other less-needed information), provide a link to alternative content.
