DrWebPreparing for New Web Accessibility Requirements -W American Libraries Magazine
Preparing for New Web Accessibility Requirements
Small steps can produce significant improvements
By Carli Spina and Rebecca Albrecht Oling | December 17, 2025
Getting started with web accessibility improvements can feel overwhelming. The ultimate goal should be a website that maximizes accessibility and considers inclusive access in all decisions. But even incremental improvements have real benefits.
A good approach is to look at the most high-impact changes you can make early in the process to improve accessibility for users, even if the entire site is not fully accessible. The following sections outline several changes that can have a significant impact without requiring the wholesale redesign of a website.
Structural elements
Structuring digital content clearly can improve accessibility, usability, and readability. While almost all HTML tags contribute to the structure of a page, heading tags are the key.
In April 2024, the US Department of Justice released a final rule revising Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act,which will now require websites of public entities to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA digital accessibility standards. Public entities with populations of more than 50,000 people must comply by April 2026. Those with populations of fewer than 50,000 people will have until April 2027.
This article, excerpted from The Digital Accessibility Handbook for Libraries (ALA Editions, 2025), provides an overview of initial steps libraries can take to improve their website accessibility.
Heading tags range from level one, which represents the highest-level content, to level six, which represents the lowest level of content. In many content management systems, each level is assigned a different style, such as a different font, text size, or color, which tempts web designers to use these headings aesthetically rather than to reflect the relative structure of the content. But this practice can be confusing for users of assistive technologies.
This is because many assistive technologies enable users to approximate the experience of skimming a page by skipping from heading to heading to first understand an outline of the information before selecting the section relevant to their needs. Without clear and concise headings that allow users to understand the information contained in each section of the page, screen-reader users have limited options beyond having the entire page read to them, in order, from start to finish, which can significantly slow their navigation.
Readability
Creating easy-to-read content using plain language improves both accessibility and usability. A few useful guidelines:
- Organize content logically, using headings and lists as appropriate, and structuring information from more general to more specific.
- Use common words and avoid jargon, abbreviations, and other specialized or complicated language.
- Keep content concise.
- Use the active voice and present tense wherever possible.
- Evaluate all text for readability, including reading level, font selection, font size, color contrast with the background, and white space on the page.
- Know your audience and write with that audience in mind.
Alt text
To make photos, graphics, and other static visual content and images accessible to those using screen readers or other assistive technologies, most visual items need alternative text—often abbreviated as alt text—included as part of the HTML image tag. Alt text is a concise description of an image used to convey the nature and content of that image. When a screen reader encounters alt text, it reads the text aloud, enabling the user to understand the content of the image.
Alt text must convey the information that the visual item is providing to users. It should also be as brief as possible, which causes a clear tension. One useful technique is to cut out extraneous words. For example, it isn’t necessary to start alt text with “Picture of” or similar text.
Another approach: Focus on the purpose for which the item is being shared. For instance, the painting Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat by Vincent van Gogh might be presented as a depiction of Van Gogh’s appearance, to demonstrate his use of color, or to show other technical elements of his approach to painting. For each of these uses, the image could have different alt text that emphasizes those specific elements, rather than attempting to describe all aspects of the piece equally.
Thanks to Library Link of the Day
http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/ (archive, rss, subscribe options) for the article.
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