LibGuides Accessibility: Best Practices and Guidelines

For accessibility to become embedded in our everyday thinking and world, we all need to realize the role we all can play in accessibility.  We need to incorporate accessibility into workflows and considerations.  Try to step back and think "is X accessible? is there a way I can make Y accessible?" Ensuring accessibility does not need to be part of a person's job description or a person's personal experience and life to become something all people can participate in. 

What is WCAG and why should you care?

• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were created to help define how to make web content more accessible with the goal of providing a single shared standard.
• WCAG 2.0 are the most widely-accepted set of recommendations and the Revised 508 Standards are based on WCAG 2.0.
• When WCAG guidelines are followed they improve usability for everyone.
• WCAG 1.0 focused heavily on the techniques for accomplishing accessibility, especially as related to HTML. 
• Subsequent versions of WCAG focused more heavily on the principles of accessibility, making them more flexible, and encourages developers to think through the process of accessibility conceptually.
• WCAG 2.0 is based on four main guiding principles of accessibility known by the acronym POUR perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.