Step 1: Understand your goals
PDFs and other online documents - Your most important and most-accessed downloads are fully accessible.
Document accessibility resources
Accessible Documents on harvard.edu
Step 2: Watch the video
Accessible documents are easier for all users to understand — not just those with disabilities.
Identify and review your most-read and most important documents. Each one must be fully accessible so you can engage more users. Use the skills you’ve learned in the previous sections to verify color contrast, form accessibility, keyboard navigation, page structure, and more.
Step 3: Practice your new skill
Basic tests
- Identify your most-used and most important public documents.
- Depending on the format of your document and version of your software, open the document and run the accessibility checker in the application.
- Use the skills you've learned in the previous sections to verify:
- Color contrast
- Form accessibility
- Keyboard accessibility for interactive elements
- Correct page structure (headings, lists, etc.)
- Images have alt text or are marked as decorative
- Link accessibility
- Frame accessibility
- Embedded media accessibility
- If the file is a PowerPoint, verify:
- The reading order on each slide
- Each slide has a unique title (does not have to be in the visible area)
- Shapes, separators, and word art are marked as decorative unless used to convey information
- Charts, graphs, and infographics have alt text or a text box describing the image layered under the image