Accessibility Guide

General Accessibility Guidance

Using OAHP Templates

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:

• Inventory Form Templates

• PPE Form (forthcoming)

• State Register Forms (forthcoming)

• CLG Grant Application FY 2025

• Other Templates (forthcoming)

Filling out Documents Digitally

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. 

Checking for Accessibility

Checking Accessibility in the Google Workspace (Docs, Slides, Sheets) 

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. 

Adding Alternative Text in Microsoft Office 

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

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. 

Alternative Text Examples 

Graphs and Charts

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.

Decorative Images

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.

Decorative Images Example

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. 

Maps

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

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. 

Tables

Avoid Using Tables for Layout

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.

Keep Tables Simple

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.

Simple Table Example

The following table is simple because it has one header row and has no merged cells.

Formatting Text 

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.

Converting Documents to PDF

Saving Accessible PDFs in Microsoft Office

To ensure that accessibility is maintained when converting documents to PDFs in Microsoft Office, there are a few simple steps to be followed: 

1. Before converting, leverage the accessibility checker to resolve as many issues as possible.

2. When you’re ready to convert your Office document to a PDF, go to the “File” menu and select “Save as”. 

3. 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”. 

4. Select that link and a dialog box will appear that has a button for “Options”.

5. 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. 

6. 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. 

Saving Accessible PDFs in the Google Workspace

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.

Submitting Source Documents

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.