Recommendations for new content

Website content (text, links, images, attachments, videos etc.) must be fully accessible.

Below are simplified rules to help users when providing us with new content; please refer to the WCAG 2.1  guidelines for complete rules.

Images must have a meaningful text alternative (description)
Images that include text as part of the image must have a suitable text alternative, with the exception of logos
Infographics and charts must have a link to a full description of the content

Word documents and PDFs must be fully accessible

Documents must have a title and hierarchical headings
Heading styles must not be used to highlight information
Bold text should be used a little as possible, and should not be used as a substitute for headings
Do not use colour as the sole way to convey important information
Images must follow the rules stated above
Links must use text that is meaningful out of context (see above), and not typed out in full

In addition to those recommendations, please follow our guidelines Writing for the web

Tables must follow the recommendations for text documents

Additional recommendation for tables:

Tables should include a header row.
Empty cells within a table should be marked as such with a minus sign, a zero or N/A
Avoid merging data or header cells; merged cells cause navigation problems

Presentations must follow the recommendations for text documents and tables

Additional recommendation for presentations (either powerpoint or PDF)

Use unique slide titles, to allow screen readers to skim slides to navigate
Make hyperlinks, images and tables accessible: see recommendations above
Set reading order of slide content, this is particularly important if there are more than one text box. Screen readers read the elements of a slide in the order they were added in, which might be different from the intended order.

Videos and audio must have transcript and captions
Video or animation must not have content that flashes more than three times a second

Web pages must follow all rules stated above

Web pages must have a title and hierarchical headings
Heading styles must not be used to highlight information
Bold text should be used a little as possible, and should not be used as a substitute for headings

Images must have a meaningful text alternative (description)
Images that incude text as part of the image must have a suitable text alternative, with the exception of logos
Infographics and charts must have a link to a full description of the content

Tables must include a header row if users need it to understand the content of each cell, in relation between the cell and the header row.