Overview
In this article, we link to individual how-to guides on improving your Dornsife website accessibility in the WordPress interface. This will help you ensure that your website is accessible and provides a smooth experience for visitors with differing ability levels and anyone who may be using assistive devices.
We will be adding more guides over time, and you can email webproject@dornsife.usc.edu if you have questions or requests.
These guides are focused on using the WordPress interface, with detailed screenshots: if you are seeking general information about good accessibility practices, we recommend the Dornsife website's Accessibility page.
Adding alt text to website images
Providing descriptions (or alt text) when adding images to your Dornsife website ensures that visitors with low vision or those using screen readers can obtain information about the images:
Adding a descriptive title to iframes (embedded forms)
You can add Emma sign up forms, Google Forms, Qualtrics, and other forms to your Dornsife website. Make sure to give those forms a descriptive title to make navigation easier for visitors with screen readers:
Creating clear, understandable links
It's important to provide clear and descriptive links. Learn general guidelines for writing the best link text, as well as how to address more complex links:
Creating clear, understandable buttons
If you are creating custom buttons with HTML, make sure those buttons hold clear, understandable text. If they lack this, you can use aria attributes to ensure that your buttons are still readable by assistive technologies:
Creating clear, understandable form controls
A moderate amount of HTML familiarity is needed if you are creating custom forms (rather than forms from another source such as Google or Microsoft) directly on your Dornsife website. Follow our guide to ensure that you're adding descriptive labels to your form controls and associating label and control pairs correctly:
Checking color contrast
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level AA, which is the standard that Dornsife WordPress follows, requires a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for most text. The following guide helps you check for and correct color contrast:
Making PDF documents accessible
If you are attaching PDF documents to your Dornsife website, follow our guide to make your PDF documents accessible:
Making Word documents accessible
If you are attaching Word documents to your Dornsife website, follow our guide to make your documents accessible: