Content guidelines

Accessibility guidelines

Content on The Oxford Magazine’s website must comply with Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Here’s a summary of how to make your web content accessible:

Text content

  • Page titles should be descriptive and not duplicated.
  • Headings should be descriptive and properly tagged and nested.
  • Link text should make sense in isolation (and not repeated for different link destinations).
  • Instructions should not rely on sensory abilities only, such as vision
  • Tables should be simple, easy to use with a keyboard and have descriptions set using ‘caption’.
  • Acronyms and initialisms should be explained in full the first time you mention them.
  • Technical information requiring a high reading age should have a plain English summary.
  • Content should be written and formatted so it’s easy to scan and understand.

Images, video and audio content

  • Images should have alternative text (alt text) description to explain what the image shows.
  • Images should not contain text (except logos).
  • Video iFrame HTML embed code must include title=”” with a description of the content inside the quotation marks.
  • Videos (prerecorded) should include closed captions (CC) describing any dialogue and sound effects.
  • Videos (prerecorded) should include an audio description (AD) for any visual information not explained in the main audio track.
  • Videos (prerecorded) should be made available featuring British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation where appropriate.
  • Videos (live) including CC, AD and BSL is best practice, but not always practical and not mandatory.
  • Videos should have a title attribute included in the HTML embed code
  • Audio content should have a transcript

PDFs and other documents

  • Titles should be descriptive and set in the file’s properties
  • Headings should be descriptive, set using Styles (not bold, underline or making the text bigger) and nested properly
  • Instructions should not rely on sensory abilities, such as vision.
  • Link text should make sense in isolation (and not used for different link destinations)
  • Images (including charts, shapes and icons) should have a meaningful alt text description, and not contain text (except logos).
  • Tables should have a description, and be simple enough that you can tab through them (but never used for page layout).
  • Videos should include closed captions (CC), plus added audio description (AD) where needed.
  • Audio content should include access to a transcript.
  • Bookmarks should be added to long documents.
  • Slides in PowerPoint decks have their own specific accessibility requirements, such as unique titles and reading order. Please contact us for more information.
  • Spreadsheets in Excel have their own specific accessibility requirements, such as good sheet structure and setting column headings correctly. Please contact us for more information.
  • Google accessibility checker should be used before saving and publishing to find accessibility issues, e.g. poor colour contrast.
  • Documents should be made available in accessible alternative formats (such as easy read or large print) where appropriate

Maps

  • It’s difficult to make maps accessible (for example a Google Map embedded on a contact page).
  • If a map exists to provide directions, this information should be published in text format in addition to the map.
  • Map iFrame HTML embed code must include title=”” with a description of the content inside the quotation marks.