Providing Access for All
This site contains short checklists designed to assist you in ensuring that documents you produce are accesible to all users. Please take a moment to read through the Background Page to learn more about the checklists.
What is an Accessible Document?
Documents are considered to be accessible when the information contained in them can be clearly and equally understood without the need for visual or audio cues.
Why Are Accessible Documents Important?
We cannot assume that everyone consumes information in the same manner as we do, or that they have access to the most recent software or hardware, nor can we assume that they do not have a disability or health issues which make navigation of electronic information difficult.
This means that when we have something important we need to convey to everyone we need to take these differences into consideration before we decide on how we are going to communicate our information. Even if you plan on uploading the file to a website, this may not ensure access to the information within your document. Here are a few reasons why:
- Not all web sites are accessible, therefore it is always wise to ensure that your information is available in an alternative format.
- Word documents are often the beginning of a larger project. For example, many Word documents are converted into alternative formats such as HTML and PDFs.
- As mentioned previously; you never know who your unintended audience may be or how they are going to view the document. Therefore, you need to ensure that everyone can access the information within the document with or without the use of assistive technology.