The LibGuides Guide

Accessibility in LibGuides is largely based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. This largely means formatting your guides using the correct HTML markup, when in doubt, look to see in the Rich Text editor bar at the top to implement any formating such as lists, headings to convey content structure, styles to denote emphasis. Please watch the Springshare training on accessibility in LibGuides webinar for an overview. This page addresses two of the most common accessibility issues that come up: alt text in images and headings. 

What is Alt Text and why does it matter?

Alt Text, short for alternative text, is a short textual description of an image. Alt text is used when an image can't be directly viewed, either because of a rendering issue when a webpage loads or because the end user has low or no vision.

Tips for writing alt text

• Skip the "image of" phrase and just get to it
• Identify the most salient reason for using that specific image and focus on that
• Include all text in the image in your alt text

How do I include alt text?

You can add alt text to an image in a couple of different ways. When you first upload the image into the Image Manager, or you can go back and add alt text to existing images on your guide.

Adding Alt Text in the Image Properties when first uploading an image

First, click on the image option in the top of the Rich Text/HTML

You can add externally hosted images through a URL or click Browse Server to upload your own images

To continue

To check the alternative text on an image, go to image properties and look at the Alternative Text field

Common Issues with Headings

• Empty headings
• Skipping heading structures
• Accidental headings

Empty Headings

Empty headings can happen when you add a heading structure to a blank line. This can cause confusion for those using screen readers or navigating your guide through keyboard controls. It can leave the end user wondering if something should be there or not. You can avoid empty headings by double checking that you haven't accidentally included the line above or below each heading.

Skipping heading structures

In the Rich Text editor on LibGuides, the top heading option is Heading 3. That's because Heading 1 is reserved for only the title of the guide, and heading 2 is reserved for the box title. Sometimes people skip heading 3 because heading 4 is closer to the font size they want. This creates a navigation structure that leaves users wondering if they've missed key information. If you want different font sizes in your headings, you can change that through the font and size options in the rich text editor.

Accidental headings

This can happen through accidentally highlighting more that you mean to when building out a guide. It can also happen when you copy and paste from a Word document or other text editor. If you write the text you'd like in your guide in this manner, it's recommended to move the text to plain text by either copying and pasting into a basic text editor without those functions, or to highlight everything, change it all to normal, and add the heading structures back in through the Rich Text editor functions.