Foundation for Information Technology Accessibility (Malta)

FITA Web accessibility checklist – V1.0305

  1. Images and animations.Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element
  2. Image Maps. Use client-side image maps and alternative text for image map hot spots. If a server-side map is needed, provide equivalent text links.
  3. Graphs and Charts. Summarize the content of each graph and chart, or use the longdesc attribute to link to the description or data.
  4. Multimedia. Provide captions or transcripts of important audio content. Provide transcripts or audio descriptions of important video content.
  5. Scripts. Ensure the functionality of scripts is keyboard accessible. If the content affected by scripting is not accessible, provide an alternative.
  6. Applets, Plug-ins, and non-HTML content. When an applet, plug-in or other application is required to be present, provide a link to one that is directly accessible, or provide alternate content for those which are not directly accessible.
  7. Forms. Make forms accessible to assistive technology.
  8. Skip to main content. Provide methods for skipping over navigation links to get to main content of page.
  9. Frames. Provide a title for each FRAME element and frame page. Provide an accessible source for each frame.
  10. Table Headers. Use the TH element to mark up table heading cells. Use the headers attribute on cells of complex data tables.
  11. Cascading Style Sheets. Web pages should be readable without requiring style sheets.
  12. Color & Contrast. Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also conveyed in the absence of color.
  13. Blinking, Moving or Flickering Content. Avoid causing content to blink, flicker, or move.
  14. Timed Responses.When a timed response is required, alert the user, and give sufficient time to indicate more time is required.
  15. If accessibility cannot be accomplished in any other way, provide a text-only page with equivalent information or functionality. Update the content of the text-only page whenever the primary page changes.
  16. Text Size Irrespective of the use of cascading style sheets, the user’s ability to alter text size using the browser’s functionality should not be restricted.
  17. Verify Accessibility. Test the accessibility using available tools.

Implementation

  1. This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ascii art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio. Use the alt="text" or longdesc attribute to provide text equivalents for images. Use alt="" for images that do not convey important information or convey redundant information. When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images to convey information.
  1. If you use images and image maps
  2. Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map.
  3. Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.
  1. And if you use multimedia
  2. Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.
  3. For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation.
  1. If you use scripts
  2. For scripts and applets, ensure that event handlers are input device-independent.
  3. Until user agents allow users to freeze moving content, avoid movement in pages.
  4. Make programmatic elements such as scripts and applets directly accessible or compatible with assistive technologies
  5. Ensure that any element that has its own interface can be operated in a device-independent manner.
  6. For scripts, specify logical event handlers rather than device-dependent event handlers.
  1. And if you use applets and plug-ins
  1. Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.
  2. Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.
  1. If using Forms
  2. Until user agents support explicit associations between labels and form controls, for all form controls with implicitly associated labels, ensure that the label is properly positioned.
  3. Associate labels explicitly with their controls.
  1. Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content.
  2. Clearly identify the target of each link.
  3. Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate.
  4. Provide information about the general layout of a site (e.g., a site map or table of contents).
  5. Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner.
  6. Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.
  7. Identify the primary natural language of a document.
  8. Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.
  9. Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.
  10. Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links.
  11. Provide information so that users may receive documents according to their preferences (e.g., language, content type, etc.)
  12. Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism.
  13. Group related links, identify the group (for user agents), and, until user agents do so, provide a way to bypass the group.
  14. If search functions are provided, enable different types of searches for different skill levels and preferences.
  15. Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.
  16. Provide information about document collections (i.e., documents comprising multiple pages.).
  17. Provide a means to skip over multi-line ASCII art.
  18. Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations where they will facilitate comprehension of the page.
  19. Create a style of presentation that is consistent across pages.
  1. If you use frames
  2. Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation.
  3. Describe the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other if it is not obvious by frame titles alone.
  1. And if you use tables
  2. For data tables, identify row and column headers.
  3. For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.
  4. Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized. Otherwise, if the table does not make sense, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version).
  5. If a table is used for layout, do not use any structural markup for the purpose of visual formatting.
  1. Formatting
  2. Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification. Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document.
  3. Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions).
  1. Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.
  1. Until user agents allow users to control flickering, avoid causing the screen to flicker.
  1. Timed reponses and events
  2. Until user agents provide the ability to stop the refresh, do not create periodically auto-refreshing pages.
  3. Until user agents provide the ability to stop auto-redirect, do not use markup to redirect pages automatically. Instead, configure the server to perform redirects.
  4. Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user.
  1. If, after best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent information (or functionality), and is updated as often as the inaccessible (original) page.
  1. Stylesheets created with pixel measurements (px) cannot be resized in Internet Explorer for Windows. To allow for resizing on windows size your stylesheets using another measurement such as em, pt, or relative sizes (keywords: i.e smaller, larger, etc and percentages).
    Specify generic font family with font declarations in stylesheets. Specify all five attributes: text color, link, vlink, alink, and background colors in all documents (HTML and CSS files) to avoid a clash between your stylesheet and one that the user may have set by default.
    We recommend using a body font of 95% or 12 points. This is roughly equivalent to .85 - .95em depending on screen resolution settings (i.e. 96 or 72dpi).
  1. Create documents that validate to published formal grammars.

Electronic Tools

  1. Bobby
  2. Insight 508 / Ask Alice
  3. Cynthia Says
  4. Macromedia's "Check Page for Accessibility" extension

This document is based on information available at

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