×

Common Searches

What majors does UMSL offer? Where can I sign in to Canvas? What courses are offered this semester? What are the upcoming events at UMSL? How can I get IT help? How do I request a transcript? How do I add or drop a class? Who is my advisor?
Admissions Pay Tuition Financial Aid Scholarships and Grants Alumni and Giving Athletics Visit UMSL Careers at UMSL

Document Accessibility

When creating digital documents, there are a few basic issues to keep in mind in order to ensure your content is accessible. These issues are the same regardless of whether your document is in HTML, Word, PDF, or another document format.

Below is a checklist to consult to ensure that your document meets accessibility standards. 

Accessible Document Checklist

  1. Do Headings form an outline of the page content?
    For details, see our Headings page.
  2. Are Lists used to identify all content that can be described as a list of something?
    For details on Lists, see our Navigation page.
  3. Do Form Fields within web pages and documents have appropriately coded labels and prompts, and do they provide helpful, accessible error and verification messages?
    For details, see our Forms page.
  4. Do images have Alternative Text?
    For details, see our Images page.
  5. Are Tables used solely for presenting rows and columns of data (not for layout or aesthetic purposes), and are the column and row headers identified?
    For details, see our Tables page.
  6. Is the Tab Order and Read Order logical and intuitive?
    For details, see our Tab and Read Order page.
  7. Have you avoided using Visual Characteristics to communicate information (e.g., “click the circle on the right” or “required fields are in red”)?
    For details, see our Visual Characteristics page.
  8. Does the interface have sufficient Color Contrast between text color and background color?
    For details on Color Contrast, see our Visual Characteristics page.
  9. Are Links used appropriately and labeled correctly?
    For details, see our Links page.
  10. Does the document have a sufficent Title that describes its topic or purpose?
    For details on Titles, see our Navigation page.
  11. Are mechanisms in place that allow users to Bypass Blocks of Content (e.g., bookmarks in a PDF)?
    For details, see our Navigation page.
  12. Has the Language of the document (or individual parts of a multilingual document) been defined?
    For details, see our Language page.

Additional resources

The following pages focus on issues that are unique to document accessibility:

Outsourcing PDF Remediation

Crawford Technologies provides document remediation services at prices and turnaround times that seem to be a good match for higher education institutions.
Contact the vendor for a quote: das-quotes@crawfordtech.com

Questions about remediation orders:

WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria

The issues described on this page, and associated pages, map to the following success criteria in the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1: