Web Accessibility

The standards against which pages will be evaluated are listed below. They are intended to ensure the campus' compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation of 1973 and other pertinent federal and state regulations and to help the campus meet its mission of access, service and excellence as a public university.

UMass Boston Web Accessibility and Usability Standard

1. Text equivalents for all non-text elements
   • Section 508(a)
   • WCAG 1.1
   • Suggested way to implement text equivalents
2. Synchronize alternative content for multimedia presentations
   • Section 508(b)
   • WCAG 1.4
   • Issues with synchronization of multimedia
3. Do not use color-alone to convey meaning and provide proper contrast between colors
   • Section 508(c)
   • WCAG 2.1, 2.2
   • Example of implementing color
   • Suggestions for finding and providing contrast
4. Page should be readable without accompanying stylesheet
   • Section 508 (d)
   • WCAG 6.1
   • Suggestions for stylesheets
5. Font sizes should be specified as relative values
   • WCAG 3.4
   • Issues with font sizes
6. When providing link via an image map, provide redundant text links on the page.
   • Section 508 (e, f)
   • WCAG 1.2, 1.5, 9.1
   • Suggested way to implement redundant text links
7. Identify data table column and row headers and associate those headers with the proper cells
   • Section 508 (g, h)
   • WCAG 5.1, 5.2
   • Suggested method for implementing data association
8. Title frames
   • Section 508 (i)
   • WCAG 12.1
   • Suggested way of implementing frame titles
9. Do not use elements that flicker (i.e. blink) on the screen. Avoid having items move without any user input
   • Section 508 (j)
   • WCAG 7.1, 7.2, 7.3
   • Issues associated with screen flicker and distracting design
10. Make a text-only page as a last resort to providing content in an accessible form
    • Section 508 (k)
    • WCAG 11.4
    • Issues associate with text-only pages
11. When scripts provide content, the resulting content should be accessible, and when content changes dynamically, alternative content changes as well. Pages with scripts are usable when scripts are turned off.
    • Section 508 (l)
    • WCAG 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5
    • Considerations for using scripts
12. Applets and plug-ins must be accessible. Where installation of a plug-in is required, provide a link to the plug-in and the installation process should be accessible.
    • Section 508 (m)
    • WCAG 8.1, 9.2, 9.3
    • Considerations for applets plug-ins
13. Forms should make use of labels that are adjacent and associated with fields. Forms must also have device-independent means of accessing fields and directions, etc.
    • Section 508 (n)
    • WCAG 10.2, 12.4, 10.4, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.5
    • Implementing accessibility and forms
14. Provide a means of skipping redundant navigation
    • Section 508 (o)
    • WCAG 13.6
    • Implementing skipping of redundant links
15. Provide alerts for timed responses and sufficient time to respond to such alerts. There should be no client-side automatic redirection of pages (e.g. refresh tag)
    • Section 508 (p)
    • WCAG 7.4, 7.5
    • Issues with timed events
16. Provide a means for stopping, skipping or otherwise controlling multimedia presentations.
    • Suggested means of implementing control over presentations
17. Do not use scripting to automatically spawn windows without user input
    • WCAG 10.1
    • Issues with spawned windows
18. Make links descriptive. The same descriptive text should not be used for two links that point to different locations
    • WCAG 13.1
    • Making your links descriptive
19. Provide a non-link character and a space between adjacent links
    • WCAG 10.5
    • Issues with adjacent links

Implementation of accessibility standard

The intent of this standard is to educate and encourage campus Web developers to adopt good Web development practices. Understandably, given resources, some sites will be able to meet these requirements more easily than others. So as to not undermine the communications efforts of the campus, sites that do not comply with these requirements will be given the opportunity to appropriately revise their Web pages. However, if after such opportunity, no significant progress is made toward this standard, the link to the site will be removed.