Research Guides: NYU LibGuide Accessibility: Before You Begin Accessibility Work

Before You Begin Your Accessibility Work

Deque's: The Beginner's Guide to Accessibility

Deque's: The Beginner's Guide to Web Accessibility
Welcome to the Beginner’s Guide to Accessibility! We’re glad you’re here. This guide is designed to teach you enough about the ins-and-outs of accessibility to get your bearings and to serve as a springboard for deeper investigation into the areas of accessibility that are most relevant to you and your needs.

Consider Updating Your Guide's Navigation Layout

Side navigation and a single column format improves mobile experience. It also makes navigating guides with lots of tabs and sub-pages much easier on all devices.

How to change the layout

From the author view in your guide select the Guide Layout button > the Guide Navigation Layout > Side Navigation - default
There will be a system-wide change to side navigation in the future. Making this change in advance means you won’t have to go back and review that all the content is where you want it.

LibGuide Resources Center - Change a Guide's navigation / page layout - Help Center
Springshare LibGuides FAQ page regarding changing a guide's navigation or page layout.

Readability, Cognitive Load, and Clear and Concise Content

Making our content clear and concise benefits all our users!

Tips:

Use simple and concise language when you can
- Double check that your instructions are clear and easy to follow
- Avoid acronyms and jargon
Break up big blocks of text for easier reading
- Better to have the page be longer than packed and hard to read
Don’t bury the lead. Put the main point of your text at the beginning.

Resources:

Hemingway App
Tool that assists with making your writing bolder and clearer.
Federal Plain Language Guidelines
The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN) is a group of federal employees from different agencies and specialties who support the use of clear communication in government writing. Originally called the Plain English Network, PLAIN has been meeting informally since the mid 1990s. Our goal is to promote the use of plain language for all government communications. We believe that using plain language will save federal agencies time and money and provide better service to the American public.

Web Accessibility Perspectives: Understandable Content
Full set of resources (transcripts, captions, etc.) that accompany this video can be found on YouTube's website.