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Accessible Technology

Digital Accessibility Checklist

The following checklist is based on the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, but is not a substitute for the WCAG specification. It was created to assist the UW community, including web designers, developers, content creators, and people making procurement decisions. Our intent in creating it is to present accessibility information in a way that we feel is easier to understand and directly applicable to the UW audience.

Many of the items included in the checklist apply to a full range of technologies, including web pages, digital documents (e.g., Word, Google Docs, PDF), and Canvas pages. Other items apply only to a subset of these technologies. The checklist is organized with this in mind. Within each section, the checkpoints are roughly organized by impact, combined with ease of implementation. The most critical checkpoints that are also easiest to fix, appear near the top of each list.

For a working checklist (in Excel) that can be used for manually evaluating web pages, web sites or web applications for accessibility, UW branding, and style, see the UW Web Checklist.

Checkpoints for web pages, documents, and Canvas pages

  1. Headings – Do headings form an outline of the page content?
  2. Lists – Are lists used to identify all content that can be described as a list of something?
  3. Images – Do images have alt text?
  4. Tables – Are tables used solely for presenting rows and columns of data (not for layout), and are the column and row headers identified?
  5. Color contrast – Does the interface have sufficient contrast between text and background colors?
  6. Visual characteristics – Have you avoided using color or other visual characteristics as the sole means of communicating information?
  7. Links and buttons – Are links and buttons used appropriately and labeled correctly? Do links have meaningful link text?
  8. Forms – Do form fields within web pages and documents have appropriately coded labels and prompts, and do they provide helpful, accessible error and verification messages?
  9. Time limits – Do pages that have time limits include mechanisms for adjusting those limits for users who need more time?
  10. Language – Has the language of the web page or document (or individual parts of a multilingual document) been defined?

Checkpoints for web pages and documents only

  1. Tab and read order – Is the tab order and read order logical and intuitive?
  2. Titles – Does the web page or document have a title that describes its topic or purpose?
  3. Navigation – Are mechanisms in place that allow users to bypass blocks of content (e.g., a “skip to main content” link on a web page or bookmarks in a PDF)?

Checkpoints for web pages only

  1. Keyboard accessibility – Can all menus, links, buttons, and other controls be operated by keyboard, for users who are unable to use a mouse?
  2. Page regions – Are common regions of the web page properly identified in the code?
  3. ARIA – Do rich, dynamic, web interfaces include proper ARIA markup?
  4. Popups – Are pop-ups such as menus, dialogs, and tooltips accessible?
  5. Flashing and flickering – Have you avoided using content that flashes or flickers at a rate that might trigger seizures?
  6. Auto-updating content – Do features that update automatically (e.g., carousels, animated background graphics) have mechanisms that enable users to pause or avoid these features?
  7. Enlarged text – Does the content scale well when text is enlarged?
  8. Mobile devices – Is content accessible on mobile devices?
  9. Predictability – Have you avoided links, controls, or form fields that automatically trigger a change in context?
  10. Finding content – Does the website have consistent navigation, including two or more ways of finding content?
  11. Code validation – Is the web page coded using valid HTML?

Checkpoints for audio and video

  1. Captions – Does recorded video have captions for people who are unable to hear the audio?
  2. Audio description – Does recorded video include critical visual content that is not accessible by audio alone? If so, does the video include audio description?
  3. Transcripts – Does recorded audio have a transcript?
  4. Live captions – Are captions available for live meetings, classes, and events?