Website accessibility

On this page you can find information on:

Structuring accessible content

The way you structure content is important for accessibility. This also means including everyone with various disabilities in being able to understand the content. 

Use short sentences and paragraphs

When writing web content, you should write is short sentences and paragraphs.

Short sentences

You should use short sentences because it:

  • gives control to people using screen magnifiers and customised views
  • makes it easier for people with learning difficulties
  • allows people to scan content for the parts they want to read
  • allows people with cognitive difficulties to focus on reading the content. 

Short paragraphs

Short paragraphs can help users to understand the content more. You should use short sentences because it:

  • allows people who are using a screen magnifier to customise their view
  • makes it easier for people to read
  • ensures people can understand the content without the rambling.

Headings

Using headings allows us to create structure within the content.

There are many benefits to using headings including for people with:

  • cognitive impairments or fatigue
  • screen readers or screen magnification software
  • visual or motor impairments.

It also breaks the content visually and makes blocks of content less daunting. 

Headings should:

  • follow in a logical order 
  • be precise and descriptive to help grasp the main point of the paragraph.

Use the headings on this webpage as an example.

You should not use headings to:

  • apply affects to text
  • apply a heading 1 to more than 1 page
  • use the same heading on every page.

Layout of web content

You should always left justify text, this means that it makes it easier for someone to find the start and end of each line and there will be an even gap between words. 

Writing in Plain English

Content that is written for the web will be more accessible.

View our content standards for guidance.

Fonts

Font type

Fonts need to be clear and easy to read and should be a sans-serif font such as:

  • Arial
  • Verdana
  • Helvetica. 

Thin or light fonts should be avoided because people with sight difficulties find heavier text types easier to read. 

Font size

Having a text size of 12 to 14 points or higher makes reading content easier for most users. Font sizes can vary between fonts, for example, Times New Roman looks smaller than Arial font in 12 point size. 

Capitals

You should avoid the use of overcapitalisation. You should always capitalise the appropriate words, however, to make a whole sentence capitalised can cause problems for people with dyslexia.

Using colours

Colours should not be used to show the differences between content. This is because someone who struggles with colour vision may not be able to see content that shows differences. 

This means that the message you're trying to send is lost because they cannot see it. 

You should check your colour contrast using the WebAim colour contrast checker.

Alternative text

Alternative text is needed for images, including more complicated images such as graphs.

You need to add meaningful alternative text for:

  • charts
  • images
  • figures.

If you have text in an image, this should be repeated in the alternative text.

You should avoid using:

  • poor quality images
  • poor colour contrast
  • images containing lots of text.

Golden rules for alternative text

  • Every image must have an alternative text attribute
  • Describe the information, not the picture
  • Never place important text within an image
  • Images that contain information need alternative text
  • Decorative images should have empty alternative text.

When adding alternative text to images, it should have:

  • a shorter description for an image in the alternative text
  • a long description in the text after the image explaining the information in the image.

Overlays

Overlays could be seen to help users with disabilities access websites. However, overlays can come with accessibility issues.

Reasons to avoid using overlays

Interfering with screen readers

The use of overlays can interfere with screen readers like JAWS and NVDA.

This can cause more issues because they can make a site unusable.

They do not fix accessibility issues

Overlays do not correct issues with accessibility and they can also create new ones.

The problem with overlays is they can mask real issues on a website and make it more difficult for users to access information with screen readers and browser add-ons.

Overlays are not a quick fix

If your website has accessibility issues, overlays are not the answer.

It's important to identify accessibility issues with a website rather than using an overlay.

Social media posts

Content that is posted on social media is also required to be accessible for disabled users.

Accessible Social has guidance to make social media posts accessible including: