Your Librarian
Tisch Library
Tufts University
35 Professors Row
Medford, MA 02155
About This Guide
This guide was created to help Tisch Library staff make their LibGuides accessible and to help us ensure that our LibGuides comply with accessibility laws and standards.
Definitions
What is Web Accessibility?
Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them. More specifically, people can:
- perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with a web-based technology and content.
- contribute to web-based technology and content.
Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including:
- auditory
- cognitive
- neurological
- physical
- speech
- visual
How does Accessibility Differ from Usability?
Web accessibility is different from usability because usability does not address how assistive technology interacts with a design or product to create a user experience. Certain parts of web accessibility are also required by law, while no parts of usability are.
In short, accessibility is technical and involves understanding how assistive technology works and users operate it, while usability is more about the quality and ease of using a site or product. They overlap in some places because accessibility benefits many other users, such as those who struggle with executive functioning, those aging or with memory problems or tremors, those in rural areas where images won't load because the internet is slow, English language learners who prefer media with captions, etc.
-Adapted from W3C's Web Accessibility Definition
Selected Standards & Laws
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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2Success criteria for different levels of WCAG often serve as a cornerstone for compliance with Section 508 or the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973Under this law, federal agencies and institutions receiving federal funding must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information comparable to the access available to others.
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Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)ARIA is a set of roles and attributes that define ways to make web content and web applications (especially those developed with JavaScript) more accessible to people with disabilities.
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Tufts Digital Accessibility PolicyAll online content at Tufts, including LibGuides, needs to adhere to the rules set forth in this policy, which states that WCAG level A and AA success criteria and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 are the two accessibility standards the university uses.
Resources
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WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation ToolsWAVE® is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content.
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WAVE Contrast CheckerChecks the contrast of text color against background color, and tell you if you meet WCAG compliance.
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Web AIM's Creating Accessible TablesAn overview of how screen readers read tables and which tags add what properties to a table.
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WC3 School's Images TutorialEverything you need to know about creating accessible images, including writing alternative text.
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W3C School's Tables TutorialThis tutorial is useful for exploring the HTML of accessible tables more deeply.