Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

by Krug Steve

Add appropriate alt text to every image. Add an empty (or “null”) alt attribute (<alt="">) for images that screen readers should ignore, and add helpful, descriptive text for the rest. To learn how to write good alt text—and in fact to learn how to do any of the things in this list—head over to webaim.org. The folks at WebAIM have written excellent practical articles covering the nuts-and-bolts details of almost every accessibility technique. Use headings correctly. The standard HTML heading elements convey useful information about the logical organization of your content to people using screen readers and make it easier for them to navigate via the keyboard. Use <h1> for the page title or main content heading, <h2> for the major section headings, <h3> for subheadings, and so on, and then use CSS to redefine the visual appearance of each level. Make your forms work with screen readers. This largely boils down to using the HTML <label> element to associate the fields with their text labels, so people know what they’re supposed to enter. Put a “Skip to Main Content” link at the beginning of each page. Imagine having to spend 20 seconds (or a minute, or two) listening to the global navigation at the top of every page before you could look at the content, and you’ll understand why this is important. Make all content accessible by keyboard. Remember, not everyone can use a mouse. Create significant contrast between your text and background. Don’t ever use light grey text on a d...