Guidelines
Mississippi State is committed to ensuring that disabled individuals are able to access online university resources fully, independently, and with substantially equivalent access and ease of use.
Unless a listed exception applies, all university websites, social media posts and other online content must meet the accessibility standards of WCAG 2.1 at the AA level. Specifically, this includes:
- Any online digital content created, posted, distributed, or published by any university division, department, sponsored student organization, or individual acting in their capacity as a university employee, including but not limited to university websites, social media accounts, or online applications. This includes but is not limited to all content posted on any web page hosted under the msstate.edu domain.
- Any electronic system, software, or infrastructure developed or purchased by any university division or department for university business, to the extent these are deployed or made available to university students, university employees, or other persons to conduct university-related business.
Without limiting these requirements, the university has developed the following guidelines for certain key accessibility requirements.
A. Alternate Text
All images on university web pages, social media posts, and other online content must include an alternate text (“alt text”) description that effectively communicates the contents of the image.
To better interact with assistive technology applications, alt text descriptions generally should be concise, should end each sentence with a period, and should avoid unconventional spellings. For example, use “dogs” rather than “dawgs”.
An effective description should convey the essential information meant to be communicated by the image. The amount of information needed in an alt text tag may depend on the text and other information surrounding the image.
Example: A description like “Dr. Jane Smith presenting awards to outstanding new faculty members” would normally be sufficient, while a description like “Award presentation” might not, depending on the other information provided via surrounding text.
Where an image also has a specific function, such as a clickable icon within a web page, application, or other content, it must include an alt text description that explains its function.
Example: Where a web page includes an icon of a printer to print its contents, an alt text description such as “Print this page” is required.
Where possible, it is advisable to avoid using images of text. If text must be conveyed via an image, alt text should be used, or the text content should also be included in the surrounding text of the web page, social media or other content.
Where an image is purely decorative such as a border or generic background, or where its content is explained via the text of the post, alt text should be entered as double quotation marks (“”) to instruct assistive technologies to ignore it.
B. Captions and Transcripts
All online video and audio content must include captions for audio content. This includes both prerecorded and live video content. Captions must be synchronized to the corresponding audio and must describe dialogue and substantively important music or sound effects.
Example: “Loud cheering” normally would be substantively important to a video of a basketball player making a shot, but “footsteps on the court” normally would not.
Automatically generated captions are an acceptable starting point, but web and social media content creators are responsible for ensuring that captions are accurate, which normally will require review and editing. For prerecorded audio-only content, a transcript is an acceptable substitute for captions. For more information on captions and transcripts, see our Video and Audio Content page.
C. Audio Descriptions
All prerecorded online video content must be capable of being played with audio descriptions of on-screen images, actions, and text that are important to understanding the substantive content but not described in the dialogue or native audio of the video.
Where the dialogue or native audio track of a video describes important on-screen images, no separate audio description is required. Thus, for many videos, the best approach is to plan the contents in advance to include relevant descriptions in the dialogue or voiceover. For more information on requirements and best practices for audio descriptions, see our Video and Audio Content page.
Example: If a video of a classroom exercise includes a graph not described by the speaker, an audio description of the graph would be required. However, if the speaker were to describe the graph, no separate audio description would be required.
Where visual information is not substantively important, such as a generic background image or a description of a speaker’s appearance, no audio description is required. In determining what visual information is substantively important, creators should carefully consider context.
Example: While a description of the speaker’s dress likely would not be important for an academic lecture, it likely would be important for a presentation on professional attire for job interviews.
Example: While a description of the classroom likely is not important for a recording of an academic lecture, descriptions of physical locations likely would be important for a video tour of a facility aimed at prospective students.
Where descriptions of images are not included in the original audio, audio descriptions can be added during natural pauses or by adding pauses to the video to provide sufficient time. If this would disrupt viewing for those who do not need descriptions, it is acceptable to provide an alternate version of a video with audio descriptions via a clearly labeled link.
D. Structure, Navigability and Operability
Websites and applications should be structured in a manner that permits effective navigation and operation using a keyboard, screen readers and/or common assistive technologies, and permits individuals with disabilities to locate information with equivalent ease to non-disabled persons. Specifically, all sites and applications must meet the requirements of WCAG 2.1 sections 2.1-2.5 at the AA level.
For websites developed by MSU Information Technology Services, many of these requirements are built into the underlying architecture of the site. For other websites and applications, the developing department or unit is responsible for understanding and implementing these requirements. All personnel adding or modifying content on any university web site or application are responsible for adhering to these requirements so as not to undercut accessibility features when adding or modifying content.
Website Organization and Navigation: Websites should be structured and organized in a way that permits individuals using keyboard navigation, screen readers and/or other common assistive technology to locate and navigate to desired content without undue difficulty.
This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including providing a table of contents or site map that organizes the sites pages in a logical way and provides links to each. However this information is presented, site developers must ensure that navigation tools remain up to date as revisions to the site are made.
Example: The main landing page of an academic department’s website should enable a visually impaired user relying on a screen reader and keyboard navigation to locate key topics of interests, such as majors, concentrations, and faculty listings quickly from a top-level menu or site map. If the contents of the website in these areas change, all navigation options must be updated to reflect those changes and allow effective navigation.
Page Organization: Each webpage must have a title that describes its topic or purpose. Where a webpage addresses multiple topics, each topic should have a heading that describes the corresponding content. Title, headings, and subheadings must be properly identified using HTML or other similar features provided by the authoring tool.
Example: The title of a webpage on freshman admissions created using HTML should be designated as “<title>Freshman Admissions</title>” with headings designated using appropriate designations such as “<h1>How To Apply</h1>”.
Example: A Canvas course page should be divided into sections using the heading level options, rather than modifying text sizes by hand or other means of separation. Heading 1 is automatically used for the page title, with Heading 2 reserved for top level sections, Heading 3 for subsections, and so on.
Creators must ensure that the heading structure corresponds accurately to the contents of the page, as inconsistencies can make it difficult or impossible for persons using screen readers to find needed content.
Operability: All functions and content of a website must be navigable and operable through a keyboard interface. If a user can navigate into a given portion of a site using keyboard interface, they must be able to navigate out or back using only a keyboard. Sites should avoid time limited interactions such as moving, blinking, or scrolling content unless essential. Where time limited content is used, the site must provide the user with means to pause, stop, or hide such content.
E. Color Contrast
Per WCAG requirements, the color contrast for text and images of text on any website, social media post, or other online content must be at least 4.5 to 1, which refers to the ratio of brightness between text and its background.
Exceptions apply to (1) text that is larger than 18 point standard font or 14 point bold font, which must have a ratio of at least 3:1; and (2) text that is purely decorative, is part of a user interface component, is part of an image that contains significant other visual components, or is a logo, all of which have no minimum contrast requirement.
Example: Maroon text on a white background would comply with these requirements, while maroon text on a gray background likely would not. While these limitations would not apply to a university logo employing these colors, sufficient contrast is generally considered a sound design principle regardless of its impact on accessibility.
Example: The color contrast requirement would not apply to a graphic image with text overlayed across a photograph, but that image would require alt text communicating the text content and any other important information in the image.
Additionally, color should not be used as the primary tool for conveying meaning. Color coding of sections, links, or text is impossible to perceive for blind, low vision, and colorblind users.
Example: A text summary of a meeting or speech telling users “the president’s comments are in red” would be non-compliant. In this case, the relevant text should be identified via context such as direct quotations in text or an appropriately labeled link to a full transcript.