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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for the State of Kansas - Guidelines by Priority - Version 1.0 (October 2000)

This Guideline Has Been Superseded By Version 2.0 (November 2001) and is located at Guidelines by Priority - Version 2.0

Guidelines by Priority Version 1.0 (October 26, 2000)

Abstract
This document is intended for use by Web developers in all branches of Kansas State government, including agencies, departments, divisions, bureaus, boards and commissions, and all other state organizations (hereafter referred to as entities). It is a guideline required by Information Technology Executive Council (ITEC) Policy #1210 that requires official State of Kansas Web sites to be as accessible as possible to all Web site visitors, regardless of disability. 

This document is to be used in conjunction with the Implementation Guidance document, which outlines a specific methodology for implementing (rolling out) the accessibility features listed here. In addition, Web developers will find helpful techniques and further explanations for implementing the guidelines as well as information about general accessibility features for State of Kansas Web sites. 

This document was produced by the Web Accessibility Subcommittee (WAS) of the Internet Task Force (ITASK), a subcommittee of the State’s Information Technology Advisory Board (ITAB) as part of State Policy #1210 as approved by the Information Technology Executive Council on April 13, 2000.

Status of this document

Effective as of October 26, 2000

Please send comments about this document to:

Rick Miller, IRM/State GIS Director, Kansas Information Technology Office/DISC

    Telephone: 785.296.2771
    Email: rick.miller@state.ks.us 

Anthony A. Fadale, Kansas Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coordinator 

    Telephone: 785.296.3011
    Email: anthony.fadale@state.ks.us 

Duncan Friend, Internet Resource Administrator, Kansas Department of Administration 

    Telephone: 785.296.8134
    Email: duncan.friend@state.ks.us

Accessibility Themes

The following information about accessibility themes on the Web was adapted from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. The reader is referred to the State of Kansas Guidelines for specific information on achieving the accessible Web design themes explained here.

The two overarching themes of accessible Web design are

• ensuring graceful transformation
  
• making content understandable and navigable

• Separate structure from presentation 
  
• Provide text (including text equivalents for all images). Text can be rendered in ways that are available to almost all browsing devices and accessible to almost all users. 
  
• Create documents that work even if the user cannot see and/or hear 
  
• Provide information that serves the same purpose or function as audio or video in ways suited to alternate sensory channels as well. 
  
• Create documents that do not rely on one type of hardware. Pages should be usable by people without mice, with small screens, low resolution screens, black and white screens, no screens, with only voice or text output, etc. 

Making Content Understandable and Navigable 
This includes not only making the language clear and simple, but also providing understandable mechanisms for navigating within and between pages. Not all users can make use of visual clues such as image maps, proportional scroll bars, side-by-side frames, or graphics that guide sighted users of graphical desktop browsers. Users also lose contextual information when they can only view a portion of a page, either because they are accessing the page one word at a time (speech synthesis or Braille display), or one section at a time (small display, or a magnified display). Keys to designing pages that transform gracefully include: 

• Consistent navigation methods, sequence, and terminology site-wide 
  
• Ability to skip redundant navigational links 
  
• Site maps and site/page descriptions 
  
• Appropriate use of color

General Guidance
The State of Kansas guidelines are based in part on the work of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Where relevant, the number of the corresponding WCAG guideline is listed (with a link to that guideline on the WAI site available in the hypertext version of this document). The following items are considered "best practices" and should apply to each site as a whole.

• Create a style of presentation that is consistent across pages. 14.3 
  
• In order to satisfy many of the accessibility guidelines, it will be necessary to use version 4.0+ of HTML in combination with Cascading Style Sheets version 2.0+. 
  
• Whenever possible, avoid deprecated features of W3C technologies. 11.2 
  
• Use only W3C approved markup (e.g., no BLINK or MARQUEE). 
  
• Avoid using tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized. If the table contents cannot be read linearly, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version of the table). 5.3 
  
• Until user agents provide the ability to stop auto-redirect, do not use markup to redirect pages automatically. Instead, configure the server to perform redirects. If necessary to re-direct a page and configuring the server is not possible, label the action and allow the user to invoke the link to the new page. 7.5 
  
• Do not create periodically auto-refreshing pages. 7.4 
  
• Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content. (14.1)
  
• Avoid causing the screen to flicker or blink. (7.1)
  
• Avoid server-side image maps. If you must use server-side image maps, provide redundant text links for each link on the image map. (1.2) 
  
• Aside from logos, never use images/graphics to convey text. 
  
• Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate. 12.3
  
• For scripts and applets, ensure that event handlers are input device-independent. 6.4 
  
• Use of frames is discouraged. If you must use frames, title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation. ( 12.1)
  
• If, after best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent information (or functionality), and is updated as often as the inaccessible (original) page. ( 11.4 )

Note on Dynamic Mapping Applications: At the present time, sites containing applications that make use of Interactive Mapping Services (IMS) are granted an exception from these priorities, where applicable, due to the complex graphic-intensive, and dynamic nature of these services. We will continue to pursue these issues with the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) community, the Internet accessibility community, and the Federal government to achieve full compliance as developments in the technology allows.

Priorities
Each item on the following list has a priority level assigned based on the item's impact on accessibility. Further, within each priority level, the items are organized in terms of their ease of implementation. See the Implementation Guidance document for specific information as to how to proceed with implementation of these guidelines. 

Priority 1 

    Web developers must satisfy this item.

Priority 2 

    Web developers must satisfy this item. 

Priority 3 

Web developers may satisfy this item. 

Some items specify a priority level that may change under certain (indicated) conditions. 

Priority 1 Items

	Description
	Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIF's), applets and programmatic objects, ASCII art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, all sounds, stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video.
	Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.
	Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document. 6.1
	Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone with color deficits. 2.2
	Clearly identify the target of each link. 13.1
	Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification. 3.5
	Mark up lists and list items properly. 3.6
	Mark up quotations. Do not use quotation markup for formatting effects such as indentation. 3.7
	Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions). 4.1
	For scripts and applets, ensure that event handlers are input device-independent. 6.4
	For data tables, identify row and column headers. 5.1
	For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells with header cells. 5.2
	Provide summaries for data tables (not tables used for layout). 5.5

Priority 2 items

	Description
	When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than graphics to convey information. For example, use MathML to mark up mathematical equations instead of using graphics to represent symbols. Further, use style sheets to format text and control layout. 3.1
	Create pages that use the transitional or the strict document type declaration (e.g., <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> or <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">) and include the appropriate declaration as the first line of every HTML page. 3.2
	Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. 3.3
	Use relative rather than absolute units of measure (e.g., for margins, font sizes, borders, etc.) . 3.4
	Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner. 13.4
	Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs. 4.2
	Do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user. If a new window is absolutely necessary, provide an alternative, accessible means for conveying or gathering information. 10.1
	Ensure that (text or audio) equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes. 6.2
	Ensure that dynamic content is accessible or provide an alternative presentation or page. 6.5
	Provide metadata for every page. 13.2
	Provide information about the general layout of a site (e.g., a site map or table of contents). 13.3
	Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page. 6.3
	Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation. 1.3
	Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects. 9.4
	Until user agents support explicit associations between labels and form controls, for all form controls position the label close to the input field and use the "title" attribute to further explain the purpose of the input item. 10.2 & 12.4
	Describe the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other if it is not obvious by frame titles alone. 12.2
	Make programmatic elements such as scripts and applets directly accessible or compatible with assistive technologies [Priority 1 if functionality is important and not presented elsewhere, otherwise Priority 2.] 8.1
	Ensure that any element that has its own interface can be operated in a device-independent manner. 9.2
	For scripts, specify logical event handlers rather than device-dependent event handlers. 9.3

Priority 3 items

	Description
	Identify the primary natural language of a document. 4.3
	Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls. 9.5
	Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links. 10.5
	Provide information so that users may receive documents according to their preferences (e.g., language, content type, etc.) 11.3
	Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism. 13.5
	Group related links, identify the group (for user agents), and, until user agents do so, provide a way to bypass the group. 13.6
	If search functions are provided, enable different types of searches for different skill levels and preferences. 13.7
	Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc. 13.8
	Provide information about document collections (i.e., documents comprising multiple pages.). 13.9
	If ASCII art cannot be avoided, provide a means to skip over multi-line ASCII art. 13.10
	Provide terse substitutes for header labels with the "abbr" attribute on TH. These will be particularly useful for future speaking technologies that can read row and column labels for each cell. Abbreviations cut down on repetition and reading time. 5.6
	Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations where they will facilitate comprehension of the page. 14.2

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