WP Accessibility Knowledge Base
Content checks for web accessibility
This page gives an overview of the manual checks you can do to provide readable content for as many users as possible. Read the detailed explanation about how to write accessible content in Content and images in the section Standard and best practice of this documentation.
Alternative text for images
Describe (for non-visual readers) the contents and purpose of a meaningful image in your alternate text. That purpose may depend on the context in which an image is used. The Alt decision three by the W3C helps you decide what the alternate text should be for various situations.
Documentation about alternative text for images:
- Alternative text for images.
- Images as link.
- Alternative text for images, SVGs and icons in development.
Headings
Headings are the framework of your content. A good heading structure reflects the content on your page, like the index of a book:
- One H1 per page, describing what the page is about.
- Use the other headings meaningfully by their level and not by their font size.
- A good heading describes in short the content that follows.
- Do not skip a heading level.
Documentation and test tools for the heading structure:
Link texts
- Use meaningful link text that describes the content being linked to.
- Avoid “click here”, “read more”, ”download”, ”continue reading” as link text. It’s meaningless and people have to read around the link to see what’s it about.
- If you use an image as link, use the alternative text as link text.
Documentation about link texts:
Video and audio
- Make sure video has closed captions.
- Make sure audio has transcriptions.
- Don’t autoplay video and audio.
Documentation about video and audio:
- Making Audio and Video Media Accessible, by the W3C.
Readability
How you construct your text and what the reading level is, is depending on the purpose of your content, but here are a few good practices:
- Start with a short summary of the content.
- Divide the rest of the text in short blocks.
- Keep your texts simple and to the point.
- Use headings and lists and meaningful link text.
- Avoid large blocks of text.
Note: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at level AA do not check for readability.
Documentation about readability: Readability.