Slashes in Dates and in Place of the Word 'and'
Updated March 2019 - Previously it was not recommended to use slashes in dates (6/12/2018 - 8/12/2018) or in place of the word 'and' as research had indicated it did not read the same to both sighted users and screen readers. A number of the State's Assistive Technology (AT) Consumer Group have indicated this is not a problem after all.
Opening Documents and External Links in New Windows
Updated January 1, 2019 - Previously, it was not recommended to open documents and external links in new windows because it is difficult for users to be consistent and ensure links were identified as opening in a new window as required by accessibility criteria. This is no longer an issue because the system programmatically attaches a label indicating the document will open in an external window whenever 'new window' is chosen in the hyperlink manager dialog box.
The Following Practices are NOT Recommended
- Do not use bold text as a heading. Screen readers look for the semantic heading tag and will not see text that is bold as a heading.
- In the Hyperlink Manager Dialog box do not copy the url into the link text field. Copy the tooltip field for the link text.
- FY2010-2011 doesn't read out in a screen reader the way it does for sighted users. Need to use FY2010 to 2011 or FY2010 through 2011