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4 Do’s and a Don’t

I received an EMail that really got me thinking. Are there any of the accessibility standards that are more important than others? Are there some of the checkpoints that should be implemented before any of the others? Amongst other things the mail read:

The standards are intimidating, they are difficult to read. Just what should be done first? Are some checkpoints more important than others?

Phew, this is like asking a father which of his children are his favorite.

I gave this a lot of thought and came up with a list of 5 things which in my opinion would be the most important things to implement to get your site started on the road to accessibility.

  • DO NOT - use tables for layout purposes.
  • DO - use cascading stylesheets to separate your content from the layout elements.
  • DO - use the Alt attribute with all the graphics on your site. Use empty alts (alt=”") for images that are purely decorative.
  • DO - make sure that the text used in links makes sense out of context. Avoid those ‘click here’ links.
  • DO - validate all your markup ((X)HTML and CSS).

I am not attempting to re-write the standards, I am simply providing a list of the things I would do first if I wanted to get a site compliant with the standards. If these 5 things have been implemented all the other checkpoints will become easier to adhere to.

What are your thoughts on this issue? If your site did not comply with the standards, which things would you implement first?

Sue, I hope this helps a bit.

These posts might be related:

  1. Help yourself as well as others
  2. W3C Accessibility Guidelines - Priority 2 Checkpoints
  3. W3C Accessibility Guidelines - Introduction
  4. Just where are we with regards to standards?
  5. W3C Accessibility Guidelines - Priority 3 Checkpoints

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