UT Tyler Web Publishing Standards

Accessibility, Usability and Testing

UT Tyler strives to adhere to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Compliance with these acts helps ensure that UT Tyler Web pages are readable by users with disabilities. UT Tyler also follows the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The UT Tyler template has been designed to build accessible pages. It is best practice to test your pages for usability and accessibility to ensure the pages work properly in the real world. Users should go a step further and become familiar with accessibility and usability.

• Keep content concise. 
• Use general language. Avoid technical jargon where possible.
• Avoid erroneous content, buttons, graphics and images.
• Build machine-readable text pages.
• Avoid all caps.
• Always use call-to-action links and avoid opening links in a new browser.
• Avoid publishing graphics with text content that is unreadable by screenreaders.
• Use the W3C Validate tool when publishing your page in OU Campus.
• Test your site on “real people” for whom the site is intended. Make adjustments as needed.

Additional Information

• Creating accessible PDF documents
• Making Accessible Links
• How People with Disabilities Use the Web

Redirects

Temporarily use standard redirects on old pages no longer used to prevent 404 errors.

Pages that are no longer used within a website should not be removed from the UT Tyler server without following one of these guidelines:

1. A redirect can be placed on the page to another page within your site until Google has updated.
2. Content can be added to the page explaining why the page no longer exists.

For help with redirect guidelines and pages no longer in use, contact web@uttyler.edu.

• UT Tyler Accessibility Guidelines
• Texas Administrative Code
• Web Accessibility: Access by Persons with Disabilities to Electronic and Information Resources Procured by UT System Admin