The purpose of this guide is to provide practical tips to make your submissions more accessible to people with disabilities that may be reviewing the documents. In 2021, Colorado HB21-1110 was passed, mandating digital accessibility for government entities like History Colorado. To provide equitable access to digital content, we are asking that individuals submitting Site Forms, Reports, and other materials to the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP) review this guide and do your best to put these recommendations into practice on the digital documentation that you will submit.
If you have any questions, please reach out to katrina.lee@state.co.us for accessibility questions and hc_oahp@state.co.us for OAHP-specific questions. We appreciate your efforts in creating a more accessible world for our staff, constituents, and patrons.
Table of Contents
To help maintain accessibility standards, OAHP staff have created accessible form templates that can be filled out and submitted. A list of our templates can be found below:
PPE Form (forthcoming)
State Register Forms (forthcoming)
Other Templates (forthcoming)
To help create accessible documents, please try to fill out all forms digitally. The digital text in these documents is much easier for people with disabilities to read and navigate compared to documents that have been filled out by hand and then scanned or printed from a digital document and then scanned. When handwritten documents are scanned to create PDFs, they often end up as “image-only PDFs”, which assistive technology like screen readers cannot navigate. Additionally, for those that want to zoom in on the document to better read the text, scanned images often become blurry, while digital text does not. For these reasons, please try to complete documentation digitally, and only provide scanned documents when absolutely necessary.
Microsoft Office provides a robust accessibility checker in all of the Office suite that helps to identify and resolve accessibility issues. Using the “Review” tab in Microsoft Office programs like Word or PowerPoint, there is a “Check Accessibility” button. Selecting that button will open the accessibility checker. This panel will show any flagged accessibility issues, and often provide potential resolution steps that can be taken.
In addition to using the review tab, the bottom ribbon in Microsoft Office should display text that either says, “Accessibility: Investigate” or “Accessibility: Good to Go”. Selecting this button in the ribbon will also open the accessibility checker. Note that the accessibility checker will only run on newer Office file types like .docx, .pptx, and .xlsx. Older documents can be converted to the newer format, at which point the accessibility checker can be used.
For more information, view the Microsoft Accessibility Checker Guidance.
At this time, the Google Workspace does not offer a built-in accessibility checker to review documents for accessibility. For this reason, we do recommend that, where possible, Microsoft Office is used to create site forms, survey reports, and other documentation.
There is a browser extension called Grackle Workspace that can be used to check accessibility, but this is a tool for which you would need to purchase a license.
To understand what checks the Microsoft Accessibility Checker is looking for and to apply those manual checks in the Google Workspace, reference Microsoft’s Rules for the Accessibility Checker.
Alternative text is a written description for an image that helps people understand the context and the meaning of the image. This is particularly important for people experiencing visual disabilities that may not be able to see the image or see it well. The alternative text is picked up by assistive technologies like screen readers and provides a text-based way to understand the content. Without alternative text, some people navigating the content may not be able to fully understand what is being conveyed. When writing alternative text, aim to be clear and concise.
All images must include alternative text that can adequately portray the content or function of the image.
Be descriptive in presenting the content and function of the image as clearly as possible.
Do not be redundant. If the same information is provided within the text of the document, use, “” (empty apostrophes) as the alt text so that the screen reader skips that image.
Do not use the phrases “image of” or “table of” as this is usually clear to the user.
Do not use quotation marks or apostrophes within alt-text, as screen readers will interpret these punctuation marks as the end of the alt-text, and read them aloud as HTML characters.
For more guidance on writing good alternative text, visit the alternative text guide from Governor's Office of Information Technology (OIT).
Adding alternative text in Microsoft Office is relatively easy and there are multiple ways to open the alternative text tool. The first is to right click on an image and select “Edit alternative text”. Alternatively, with an image selected, navigate to the “Picture Format” tab and select the “Alt text” button. Both of these options will open the alternative text tool where you can add alternative text. If the image is purely decorative, there is also a checkbox for marking the image as decorative.
For more complex objects, like charts and graphs, it is necessary to fully describe the information in the chart. Other items, like construction diagrams, schematics, maps, and other complex images may be nearly impossible to fully describe using alternative text. Still, do your best using some of the best practices in this guide and the reference material from Harvard University on alternative text to provide information as clearly and concisely as possible. Any genuine effort to describe the image and its meaning will be better than offering nothing at all, which is more likely to lead to confusion.
For more information, reference Microsoft’s guide on adding alternative text.
Adding alternative text in the Google Workspace is also straightforward. Simply right click an image and select “Alt text”. This will open a window that allows you to enter meaningful alternative text. For more instructions and accessibility tips for Google Workspace, see this guide from Google on making documents accessible.
Example 1: The Delaney Barn (5AH.457)
Good alt text:
White cylindrical building with a brown roof in a green grassland field. It is likely the last surviving round barn in Colorado.
Bad alt text:
Image of a weathered silo in a rural setting.
Why the alt text is bad:
Including “image of” will slow down screen reader users and the dirty silo is inaccurate when it is a round barn.
Caption:
Site number 5AH.457. The Delaney Barn located on the Delaney Farm in Aurora. View of the south elevation. Photograph taken by undisclosed photographer in 1993 before restoration.
Example 2: The Stanley Hotel (5LR.478)
Good alt text:
Georgian Revival style white hotel featuring eighty-eight guest rooms. It is famed as a haunted hotel and has now become a tourist attraction.
Bad alt text:
Image of Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.
Why the alt text is bad:
It duplicates parts of the caption which actually slows down screen reader users who need alt text.
Caption:
Site number 5LR.478. View of the southern façade of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. Photograph captured by Mark Wolf in May of 1990.
Example 3: The Brown Palace Hotel (5DV.100)
Good alt text:
Brown eight story triangular building with rounded corners. One of the first atrium-style hotels ever built.
Bad alt text:
Image of brown building in a city setting.
Why the alt text is bad:
Includes “image of” and doesn’t answer the question “What historical meaning does the building provide?”
Caption:
Site number 5DV.100. The Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. Photograph taken c. 1983 by an undisclosed photographer. View of the southwest façade along 17th St.
Alternative text for graphs and charts is often more complex than describing regular images. In general, the most effective technique is to use the alternative text to describe the chart type, the type of data, any important trends, and then indicate where in the document readers can find additional data. The additional data would be either a full table of the data points or a longer text description in the body of the document. If the full data is not provided elsewhere in the document, the alternative text will need to fully describe the data points in the chart or graph.
Charts and graphs are more complex. For this example, OIT put out a survey in July 2021 to see just how many people prefer Chrome over other browser options.
Bad alt text:
Image of a pie chart that contains data about internet browsers.
Good alt text (gives context):
A pie chart that breaks down the popularity of different web browsers. This survey was run in July of 2021 and the results are as follows: Chrome=46.6%, Internet Explorer=24.6%, Firefox=20.4%, Safari=5.1%, Opera=1.3%, Other=2.0%.
In addition to supplying alternative text, sometimes images are purely decorative. For those cases, programs will sometimes offer ways to mark the image as decorative, meaning it will be skipped by assistive technology when navigating the document. When done properly, skipping the decorative images helps to keep the experience from becoming cluttered with unnecessary information. In Microsoft suite, you are able to mark images as decorative.
In Google, there is no way to mark an image as decorative. Please use “” (empty apostrophes) as the alt text so that the screen reader skips that image.
Example of Decorative Image: Image [horizontal dividing bar] used as part of page design. This image is used as a border in the page design and has a purely decorative purpose. For more examples of decorative images, visit W3C’s tutorial on decorative images.
Much like charts and graphs, maps are complex, and it can be difficult to create alternative text that summarizes key information relevant to readers. Here are some considerations you can use when adding alternative text to images of maps.
Determine the main purpose of the map. What essential information does it convey? Focus on locations, routes, landmarks, or data points that provide important context to readers.
If the map is also showing data, provide a concise summary. For example, “This map shows population density in Colorado. Density is concentrated primarily in the Denver metro area and Colorado Springs.”
Be clear, but concise. Try to keep alternative text to a few sentences of information. A good rule of thumb is to keep alternative text to approximately 150 characters or less.
Image files do not have a reliable way of capturing alternative text. If you are going to provide image files with your submissions, please add an additional document that contains alternate text descriptions for each image file provided. Alternatively, you could add the images into a document like Microsoft Word and provide alternative text using that program.
In some documents, folks will use tables to create the desired spacing between elements on the page. While this can help us visually arrange information, it creates extra navigation steps and potential confusion for screen reader users. Tables can also create reading challenges for folks that need to zoom in on the screen. For these reasons, it is helpful to only use tables when presenting data organized by column or row headers.
Tables can be classified as simple or complex. Simple tables are ones with no merged cells and no more than one set of column or row headers. Complex tables cannot be made accessible in programs like Microsoft Word, and while they can be made accessible for the web and PDF documents, it creates a lot of additional, manual effort.
The following table is simple because it has one header row and has no merged cells.
Choosing appropriate fonts, sizes, and styles of text can help improve the readability of your documents. While there are not any accessibility rules specific to font choices, there are some best practices worth keeping in mind.
Choose clean and simple sans-serif fonts like Arial, Calibri, or Verdana. These fonts are generally easier to read, especially for individuals with visual impairments.
Try to use a minimum font size of 12 points for body text. Larger text sizes may be necessary for headings or important information.
Make sure there is a high contrast between the text color and the background. Accessibility standards require a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, where large text is defined as 14 point and bold or larger, or 18 point or larger.
Tools like the WebAIM color contrast checker and the Microsoft Accessibility Checker for Office can help to identify potential color contrast issues.
Avoid excessive use of bold, italics, or all capitals, which can make the document more difficult to read.
To ensure that accessibility is maintained when converting documents to PDFs in Microsoft Office, there are a few simple steps to be followed:
Before converting, leverage the accessibility checker to resolve as many issues as possible.
When you’re ready to convert your Office document to a PDF, go to the “File” menu and select “Save as”.
Where the menu asks for a file type, select “PDF”.
At this point, in newer versions of Office, there should be a link that says, “More options”.
Select that link and a dialog box will appear that has a button for “Options”.
Select that button and another dialog box will appear. Under the section titled “Include non-printing information” ensure that the checkboxes for “Document properties” and “Document structure tags for accessibility” are checked. You may also check other options like “Create bookmarks using” where relevant.
Finally, you can then hit the “Ok” button and save your document as a PDF.
For more instructions, follow Microsoft’s guidance for creating accessible PDFs.
At this time, the Google Workspace does not offer the ability to convert documents to accessible PDFs. Where possible, OAHP staff may request that you share the original Google Workspace document so it can be exported to Microsoft Office and converted to an accessible PDF as needed.
Because PDF files can be tricky for accessibility, OAHP requests that you also submit any “source files” with your submission. For example, if you converted a Word document or a Google Doc to a PDF, please share both the Word or Doc and PDF versions.