Accessibility Essentials

Accessibility helps ensure that all visitors can access and understand website content, regardless of ability or technology.

Creating accessible content is the responsibility of every content editor. Small changes, such as using proper headings, writing meaningful link text, and providing alternative text for images, can significantly improve the user experience.

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Use headings to organize content
• Write descriptive link text
• Create accessible lists
• Understand when tables should be used
• Identify accessibility requirements for documents, videos, and audio content

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Why Accessibility Matters

Accessible content helps all users find, understand, and interact with information on your website.

Benefits of accessible content include:

• Improved usability
• Better content organization
• Support for assistive technologies
• Compliance with accessibility requirements

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Headings

Headings create structure and help visitors understand how content is organized.

Use headings in order:

• Heading 2
  • Heading 3
    • Heading 4

Avoid skipping heading levels whenever possible.

Best Practices

• Use headings to organize content logically.
• Keep headings concise and descriptive.
• Do not use headings simply to make text appear larger.

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Link Text

Link text should clearly describe the destination or action.

Best Practices

• Make link text meaningful on its own.
• Avoid vague phrases such as “Click Here” or “Read More.”
• Clearly identify documents and downloads when linking to files.

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Lists

Use WordPress List blocks when creating ordered or unordered lists.

Best Practices

• Use bulleted lists for related items.
• Use numbered lists when sequence matters.
• Avoid manually typing bullets, numbers, or dashes.

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Tables

Tables should only be used to present tabular data.

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Documents

Uploaded documents should meet accessibility requirements whenever possible.

Considerations

• Use meaningful headings within documents.
• Verify document content can be read correctly by assistive technologies.
• Ensure PDFs are accessible before publishing.

Note: Accessibility issues within uploaded documents cannot always be corrected from within WordPress.

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Videos and Audio

Multimedia content should be accessible to all visitors.

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Before Moving On

Before continuing, make sure you can:

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Next Module: Publishing Content

Learn how to:

• Review content before publishing
• Perform final quality checks
• Verify accessibility and formatting
• Confirm links and media are working correctly
• Publish updates to your website

→ Continue to Publishing Content