Navigation auf uzh.ch
Navigation auf uzh.ch
By following a few simple rules when designing your website, you can make sure that your content is accessible for all users.
For physical venues or events, ensuring accessibility can be a challenge – but when it comes to websites, it’s really not that difficult. People with a visual impairment, for example, can read websites provided a few rules are followed in the design of the website.
The UZH content management system Magnolia already takes care of a lot of accessibility issues for web editors, for example with its standard page layout comprising header and footer, navigation and content. These areas are marked in the code and can be identified by screen readers (software which reads web pages aloud). This allows people with visual impairments to quickly find what they are looking for
Even though Magnolia provides this basic frame, Thomas Poppenwimmer, webmaster and digital accessibility expert, stresses the importance of structuring texts. This can be done, for example, with subheadings which are marked in the code with the appropriate format (heading 3, heading 4, etc.). Simply marking the subheadings in bold in the body of the text is not suitable.
Lists need to be correctly formatted to allow the visually impaired to see how many entries a list has and skip through them quickly if necessary
Tables should only be used for information that requires a table format, and not for design purposes. Also important for accessibility is the correct formatting of the title row and column, called “Header” in Magnolia.
Images cannot be read by screen readers and should therefore be described using “Alt-Text” (Alternative Text), an obligatory field in Magnolia. Write a short description of the image in this field – often a keyword is enough. If the image is only for decoration, write “Deco”. There will soon be a better solution for this in Magnolia. Avoid placing important text in the image. If it is unavoidable, the information should also be included in the alt text.
Some of these tips, such as structuring, will improve your website as a whole, not just in terms of accessibility. Others, on the other hand, may make the page look slightly less appealing. However, readability for all should take precedence over appearance. Making sure your website is accessible also increases your likelihood of being found by search engines, which are essentially blind.
More on the above and other accessibility tips can be found in the Accessibility Quick Guide or in the course “Accessibility@UZH mit dem CMS” (only in German).
The course is run by Thomas Poppenwimmer together with Daniele Corciulo, an accessibility consultant at the UZH Disability Office.
You can also ask the team at the Disability Office to test your institute, department or office websites for accessibility. In addition, they provide educational videos on the topic of digital accessibility (e-Accessibility).
Disability Office: Accessibility Quick Guide
Educational videos
Course «Accessibility@UZH mit dem CMS»
