Digital Accessibility Guide 

Ensure equal access to your digital communications and compliance with federal accessibility requirements using our quick guide to address common accessibility issues. For more information on Purdue University’s commitment to digital accessibility and compliance, visit the Purdue Office for Civil Rights guidelines for digital accessibility.

Headings 
Links
Accessible Language
Colors
Images
Multimedia

Returning with questions? Submit a miscellaneous work request

Accessibility Compliance

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a revised ruling under the Americans with Disabilities Act requiring all web and digital content to be accessible in compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standards.

These guidelines are designed to make digital content usable by everyone, including people who:

  • Use screen readers
  • Can’t use a mouse
  • Have low vision or color blindness
  • Are deaf or hard of hearing
  • Have cognitive or motor disabilities

The ruling applies to all content delivered in a digital format including:

  • Websites and web apps
  • Mobile apps
  • PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoints and spreadsheets
  • Online forms
  • Videos and audio
  • Social media posts created by the organization

Accessibility Checklist

No matter your role, ensuring our digital communications and documents meet full accessibility compliance is a shared responsibility. The following topics address common issues you may encounter in your day-to-day responsibilities. For detailed guidance, refer to the WCAG 2.1.

Headings and Structure

Use headings to organize content and help users navigate. Structuring headings in a clear order (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) helps all users — especially those using assistive technology — better understand and move through your content.

Key Rules
  • Use built-in heading styles (don’t just bold text)
  • Follow a logical order (Heading 1 → Heading 2 → Heading 3)
  • Write clear, descriptive headings
  • Don’t stack headings without content between them

Non-compliant hierarchy: Using a Heading 1 style then skipping to a Heading 4

Compliant hierarchy: Following clear hierarchy (Heading 1 to Heading 2 to Heading 3, etc.)

Non-descriptive heading: “Hammer Down Your Plan”

  • Relies on metaphor without context
  • Screen reader users won’t know what this section contains
  • Not searchable or scannable

Descriptive heading: Register for Classes and Plan Your Semester

  • Clearly states the purpose
  • Uses plain language first, personality second
  • Makes sense if read in a list of headings
Ask Yourself
  • Are you consistently applying heading styling?
  • Can someone understand your page just by reading the headings?
  • Are headings in the correct order?

Links

Links must be clearly distinguishable from surrounding text. Use descriptive, hyperlinked text that integrates naturally within the sentence while still standing out visually. Meaningful link text helps all users — especially those using assistive technologies — understand the purpose and destination of the link.

Key Rules
  • Use descriptive, action-focused language that describes the destination
  • Links should be unique within a page to distinguish from one another
  • Avoid vague phrases like “click here” or “find below”
  • Ensure links are visually distinct from the rest of the text by using color and a non-color indicator (color + underline or bold)

Non-compliant description: For visit options, click here. (“here” is linked)

  • Words like “here” or “below” are not accessible in the case of someone who has a vision disability.

Compliant description: Explore additional prospective visit experiences at Purdue.

Visually non-compliant: Review our financial aid timeline for incoming students.

Visually compliant: Review our financial aid timeline for incoming students.

  • On a gold or gray background the linked text should be black, not gold, for sufficient color contrast.
Ask Yourself
  • Are my links specific, action-oriented and clear about the destination — even if read out of context?
  • Are my links consistently identified using color contrast, bold and underlined?
  • Do they exclude non-accessible phrases like “Click here”?

Accessible Language

As best practice, your content should be easy to understand by a wide audience, void of unfamiliar jargon and complicated language and sentence structure. When in doubt, follow AP Style and reference Purdue Brand Studio’s Editorial Style Guide for university-specific guidance.

Key Rules
  • Use plain language to write clear, descriptive sentences
  • Aim for about a 9th-grade reading level
  • Avoid jargon, idioms and internal terminology
  • Limit acronyms and define them on first use
  • Avoid ALL CAPS. Screen readers don’t recognize all caps as words, and will read out each letter individually

Non-compliant: In order to facilitate the timely progression of your academic onboarding process, it is imperative that you expeditiously complete all outstanding enrollment-related requirements within the designated student portal environment.

  • This uses jargon-heavy phrasing (“facilitate the timely progression,” “designated student portal environment”)
  • Contains unnecessary complexity and filler words
  • Buries the actual action the user needs to take
  • Increases cognitive load, especially for first-generation or international students

Compliant: Log in to your student portal and complete your remaining enrollment steps.

  • Simpler verbs (complete, log in)
  • Clear subject and action
  • Removed filler and indirect phrasing
  • Keeps tone aligned with a clear, supportive Purdue voice

Non-compliant: After submitting your FAFSA, log in to myPurdue to review your SAR and complete any outstanding requirements from the DFA, including verification documents and your MPN.

  • Assumes users know multiple acronyms at once (FAFSA, SAR, DFA, MPN)
  • Creates cognitive overload, especially for new or first-generation students
  • Forces users to stop and interpret instead of act

Compliant: After you submit your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), log in to myPurdue to review your Student Aid Report. Then complete any remaining financial aid steps, including submitting verification documents and your Master Promissory Note.

  • Prioritizes clarity over internal shorthand
  • Limits acronyms, especially when introducing multiple at once
  • Spell out terms on first reference
Ask Yourself
  • Did I relay the information as clearly as possible?
  • Am I relying on internal knowledge of processes and information for the content to make sense?
  • Are there acronyms used and were they defined on first use?

Colors

Making color accessible is all about ensuring people can perceive and understand content regardless of vision differences (including color blindness and low vision).

Key Rules
  • Don’t rely on color alone to convey meaning
  • Choose a text color that has the correct contrast against the background based on the size of text (use Purdue Brand Studio’s Compliance Color Chart as your guide)
  • Use other indications along with color to indicate information, such as labels and underlines (for links) and patterns
  • Avoid color combinations that are problematic for color blindness (red + green, green + brown and blue + purple)

Non-compliant: Using Boilermaker Gold as the text color with a light gray or white background

Compliant: Using Boilermaker Gold as your text color on a black background

Non-compliant: Required fields are shown in red

Compliant: Required fields are marked with an asterisk and shown in red

Ask yourself
  • Are color combinations color-blind safe?
  • Do you solely rely on color to convey information?
  • Does your text have sufficient contrast?
  • Did you check your colors against Brand Studio’s Compliance Color Chart?

Images

Images are a great way to enhance user experience with your content. For those using assistive technologies, such as screen readers, alternative text (alt text) makes sure people who can’t see the image still get the information or purpose it conveys.

Key Rules
  • Keep the alt text concise and relevant, describing key elements of the image
  • No need to include “image of” or “picture of”, unless it is a logo (this information is already provided by the screen reader)
  • If there’s text on the image, it must be included in the alt text
  • For complex graphics, convey the key information that the image is intended to show
  • If an image is purely decorative (background textures or decorative icons), mark as “decorative” or list the alt text as “” (empty) so the screen reader knows to skip it, avoiding unnecessary noise

Non-compliant description: “Picture of students”

Compliant description: “Students walking and laughing together in the library”

Non-compliant image with link: “Students in a dorm room”

Compliant image with link: “Students relax in a dorm room. Explore Purdue housing options”

Non-compliant informational graphic: “Bar chart of enrollment”

Compliant informational graphic: “Enrollment at Purdue increased from 40,000 in 2020 to 45,000 in 2025”

Ask Yourself
  • Is the alt text descriptive, yet short?
  • What does this image communicate to the user?
  • If the image is linked, does it describe its destination?
  • If there’s text included in the image, is it included in the alt text?

Multimedia

Multimedia, such as video, audio and animations, are methods to strengthen your message and provide another avenue for users to engage with your content. Our accessibility efforts focus on making content accessible and usable for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision or have cognitive challenges.

Key Rules
  • Provide subtitles for any pre-recorded videos with audio
  • Written transcripts must be available for any audio
  • Videos must provide access to visual information if it matters for understanding
  • Users must be able to pause or stop autoplay and control playback (play, pause and volume)
  • Audio that plays automatically for more than 3 seconds must have a way to pause/stop or be muted by default
  • Avoid flashing content (no more than 3 times per second) to prevent triggering seizures
  • Media players must be keyboard accessible

Non-compliant caption: “Welcome to Purdue” (missing important sounds)

Compliant caption: “[Music playing] Welcome to Purdue.”

Non-compliant transcript: No transcript provided (deaf or hard-of-hearing users can’t access the content)

Compliant transcript: “[Intro music] Welcome to Purdue’s registration guide. In this episode, we’ll walk through how to add courses for registration in an upcoming term.”

Non-compliant video/audio: Video shows steps to complete enrollment in a portal, but the audio is “Next, click here to continue.”

Compliant audio description: “Next, select the ‘Submit Enrollment Deposit’ button on your dashboard.”

Non-compliant auto-play video: Carousel rotates every 3 seconds with no controls to pause or stop

Compliant auto-play video: Video includes visible play/pause button so users can control timing and movement

Non-compliant media player: Play button is only clickable with a mouse and no labels are included so the screen reader says “button”

Compliant media player: All controls are keyboard accessible and buttons have clear labels like “Play video” and “Mute audio”

Ask Yourself
  • Do videos have captions including descriptions of visual-only information?
  • Are auto-play videos muted?
  • Does audio content have written transcripts that you’ve manually checked for accuracy?

Check Your Work

Automated checkers are a helpful first step — but they don’t catch everything. A complete accessibility review combines automated scanning, manual testing, and real-world simulation.

Many programs have built-in accessibility tools to check for compliance and offer feedback on changes needed.

  • In Microsoft products, navigate to the Review tab and select Check Accessibility for feedback on missing alt text, color contrast, heading structure, link clarity, slide reading order, table formatting, etc.
  • In Adobe Acrobat, go to Tools > Prepare for accessibility to run the accessibility checker.
  • For Enrollment Management websites, the EMSCI team uses Siteimprove to identify issues and guide solutions.

Many programs have built-in accessibility tools to check for compliance and offer feedback on changes needed.

  • WAVE — A free Chrome or Firefox extension from WebAIM that highlights accessibility errors directly on your page. Works on password-protected and internal pages.
  • axe DevTools — A free Chrome and Firefox extension that identifies WCAG issues and explains how to fix them.
  • Siteimprove Accessibility Checker — A free Chrome extension that scans any webpage for accessibility issues and maps them to WCAG guidelines. A good option even if your team doesn’t have a full Siteimprove license.
  • Chrome Lighthouse — Already built into Chrome. Right-click > Inspect > Lighthouse tab to run a scored accessibility report.

Automated tools can’t fully replicate the experience of a user who doesn’t use a mouse or can’t see the screen. These two manual methods catch what scanners miss — and they’re free.

On a webpage, every interactive element should be reachable in a logical order. In a PDF, tab through links and form fields to confirm they’re accessible and in sequence. If you get stuck, that’s a barrier.

Keyboard-Only Navigation

Set your mouse aside and navigate your page using only the keyboard. This simulates the experience of users who rely on keyboard access due to motor disabilities.

Key commands to know:

  • Tab — Move forward through links, buttons, menus and form fields
  • Shift + Tab — Move backward
  • Enter — Activate links and buttons
  • Spacebar — Select checkboxes and activate buttons
  • Arrow keys — Navigate radio buttons, dropdowns, and menus (moves through body text line by line on a PDF)

As you tab through, watch for a visible focus indicator — an outline or highlight that shows where you are on the page. Check that it appears on every interactive element in a logical order, and that you never get stuck and can’t move forward.

Screen Reader Testing

Screen readers convert on-screen content to audio, revealing whether your content makes sense when heard rather than seen. They surface issues no automated tool will catch: reading order problems, vague link text, missing or inaccurate alt text and unlabeled form fields.

Listen for whether content is clear and logical when heard rather than seen — this applies to both web pages and documents.

Free screen readers available on most devices:

  • NVDA — Free, open-source, Windows only. Widely used and a strong option for testing. Download at nvaccess.org.
  • VoiceOver — Built into all Apple devices. No download needed. Enable on Mac with Command + F5; on iPhone or iPad through Settings > Accessibility.

If you’re new to screen reader testing, WebAIM offers free beginner guides for both NVDA and VoiceOver at webaim.org. Learning a handful of basic commands is enough to do meaningful testing.

Ask Yourself
  • Did I run the built-in checker for this content type?
  • Did I test web content with a free browser extension?
  • Can I navigate this page with a keyboard only?
  • Does this content make sense when read aloud by a screen reader?

Need Help?

If your review flags issues you’re not sure how to resolve, submit a miscellaneous work request using the link below. We’re here to help.

Submit a miscellaneous work request

Visit Purdue University’s Digital Accessibility resource page, to learn more about the university’s commitment to digital accessibility and compliance.