ADA Web Accessibility

Our Standard & Goal: WCAG 2.0 level AA Compliance

Introduction to WCAG 2.0

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to provide international protocols and guidelines in order to ensure the ongoing growth of the web.

For more detailed information on WCAG 2.0 visit the W3C's guide to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. 

WCAG 2.0 Layers of Guidance Reference

W3C has specified several layer of guidance in order to meet the varying needs of its audience, an audience that includes web designers and developers, policy makers, purchasing agents, teachers, and students.

These layer of guidance include overall principles, general guidelines, and testable success criteria. Provided below is a map of the WCAG 2.0 guideline layout:

• Principles – At the top are four principles that provide the foundation for Web Accessibility: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
•  Guidelines – under each principle are guidelines. These provide the basic goals that authors should work toward in order to make content more accessible to users with different disabilities. Guidelines are not testable, but provide the framework and overall objectives to help authors understand success criteria.
• Success Criteria – set to meet guidelines. For each guideline, testable success criteria are provided to allow WCAG 2.0 to be used where requirements and conformance testing are necessary, such as in design specification, purchasing, regulation, and contractual agreements. In order to meet the needs of different groups and situation, three levels of conformance are defined: A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest). Level AA is considered the minimum standard to meet as agreed by Web Accessibility Experts and the US Department of Justice.

Accessibility Testing (WAVE, Screen readers and the CCA)

WAVE

Introduction to WAVE

    WAVE is a tool provided free as a community service that is used to evaluate the accessibility of websites. Please note that while WAVE is a useful tool for evaluating a site's compliance it cannot ensure the accessibility of your web content, for further information review WAVE's Terms of Use.

How to Check a Website's Accessibility using WAVE

1. Go to the WebAIM Wave Tool homepage.
2. Enter the web address/URL of the site you wish to check into the search bar that reads "Web page address..."
3. Click on the arrow in the search bar or click your enter key. The report will generate, you're done running the test!

Screen readers: JAWS and NVDA

Introduction to JAWS and NVDA

    Screen readers are devices that enable individuals with blindness or low vision to access content online by providing speech output and keyboard navigation function for individuals who cannot use the mouse to navigate the computer. JAWS and NVDA are two different screen reader programs with the nearly the same uses and functions. JAWS is the most commonly used screen reader among users and it is used in addition to NVDA by the ADA Compliance office to access digital accessibility. NVDA, unlike JAWS, is a free to download program and is another often used screen reader. To test compliance we suggest using NVDA as it is free to download and use, download NVDA for your computer to be able to test your digital content with a screen reader.

How to Check Compliance with a Screen reader

WebAIM has a reference of NVDA Keyboard Shortcuts available as well as an article on using NVDA to evaluate web accessibility to use for further information.

Color Contrast Analyzer (CCA tool)

Introduction to the CCA