Standards

Table of contents

  1. Standards That Apply to Web Development
  2. Standards That Apply to Content
  3. Best Practices That Apply to Descriptive Metadata
    1. People-First vs. Identity First Example
    2. “Crip” Language Example
    3. Resources

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published multiple standards for the Web; other organizations are writing standards for other web formats. While the intent is to follow these standards, it’s important to go beyond them to create truly usable experiences for people accessing digital collections.

When writing a policy or statement, include the standards that the institution intends to follow.

Standards That Apply to Web Development

Basic guidance is available for both digital assets (including web sites, web content, and web applications) as well as authoring platforms for web content.

For basic accessibility, websites must at least adhere to the latest release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), written by the W3C. The WCAG only lightly touch on cognitive accessibility, so also refer to the note from the COGA Working Group.

When purchasing an online authoring platform, or developing a custom authoring tool, the editing interface must at least conform to the latest release of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), also written by the W3C.

Adherence to these standards does not equate to a usable experience for people with disabilities. DLF recommends wording that not only encourages developing compliant websites but also extends the institution’s intention to create usable experiences for everyone.

Standards That Apply to Content

DLF recommends adhering to the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which is also available as ISO Standard (ISO/IEC 40500:2012) as, “Following these guidelines will make [web] content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these.”

The Canadian Research Knowledge Network’s Model License 2016 advises that content should be in formats that are accessible to people with print-related and other disabilities. Content should be usable with assistive devices, but if it’s not, users should be permitted to alter or modify the materials to provide an equivalent level of access to users with disabilities.

Accessibility requirements for digitization vendors can be found in the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s document on IT accessibility. Format standards WCAG and the COGA working-group guidance cited above can help with a variety of formats outside of HTML and its counterparts. Other formats have specific standards for accessibility as well.

  • Text-based content
    Digitized text-based media must be provided in an accessible format, via either tagged PDFs following PDF/UA standards, accessible EPUB 3.x, HTML following current WCAG standards, or scanned images with a textual transcript file with proper semantic structure.
  • Image-based content
    All image-based content must at least have alternative text. The type of image should be identified and described in line with W3C WAI image accessibility guidelines or the image description guidelines from the Diagram Center.
  • Audio content
    Audio-based content must be accompanied by an accessible textual transcript that is at least 99 percent accurate for comprehension.
  • Video (moving images) content
    Video-based content must be closed-captioned, with a separate textual transcript file. For captions to be effective, they must be at least 99 percent accurate. Audiovisual materials that may trigger photosensitive epilepsy (see WCAG success criteria 2.3.1 and 2.3.2) must have a trigger warning.
  • Accessibility metadata schema
    Refer to W3C’s EPUB Accessibility 1.1 Guidelines for additional metadata that each object could have to improve identifying how it could be accessible or used by assistive technology.

Best Practices That Apply to Descriptive Metadata

Metadata is the primary key for access for people using screen readers. It is also the lens of how disability is described, documented (or not), and categorized.

Disability language, particularly codified in standards, is slow to evolve and often historically offensive and disempowering for people with disabilities. While many repositories are currently interrogating subject headings and terminology that is racist and colonialist, the same approach should be taken for language on disability.

Some disability language has been reclaimed within some disability communities, but there is no unified agreement on terminology and use. Some language is acceptable for disabled people to use for themselves, but less acceptable for others to use on them. As with interrogating language for other historically marginalized communities, take cues from the individual or community and ask if you are uncertain about respectful language.

People-First vs. Identity First Example

People-first language (e.g. “person with a disability”) evolved from the disability-rights movement in the 1970s. It was intended to center the humanity of the person. However, many disabled people, particularly in the Autistic and Deaf communities, prefer Identity-first language because it recognizes that their disability strongly shapes who they are.

“Crip” Language Example

“Crip” is historically an offensive term (“cripple”) that has in some cases been reclaimed by disabled people. It tends to be a word that disabled people might use on themselves or other disabled people, but is less acceptable for nondisabled people to use to describe disabled people.

Resources