In this post I will be covering some of the basics of blogging accessibly. Blogging accessibly is part of a wider Penn State effort to make all of our web content accessible to those with severe visual impairment, low vision, colorblindness/deficiency, the deaf or hard of hearing, impaired mobility, learning disorders, neurological impairments, etc.

Formatting Section Headers

This section will cover how to properly format headers within the body of a text. The text, “Formatting Section Headers” begins a new section of this page and as such has been formatted as “Heading 1”. Examples of improper formatting are: FORMATTING SECTION HEADERS, or Formatting Section Headers, or Formatting Section Headers.

Starting a New Sub Section

To create a section within a section, aka a subsection or second level heading, use “Heading 2” as in “Starting a New Section”. If you are creating a third level heading (or sub-sub section) you would format the title as “Heading 3” and so on.

Creating Lists, Links, Photos, Etc.

When creating lists, use formatted bullets as appropriate (do not use asterisks or tilde or dashes to indicate a list). There should be a brief introduction before the list:

• Do not just start the bullets immediately after a title or heading
• Avoid directional language (“the list below,” “referenced above,” etc…
• When incorporating links, you should embed the link into a phrase that describes what the link is, as opposed to saying “click here” or something similar
• When posting an image please make sure the photo has alt text assigned
  • Alt text should briefly describe what is happening in the photo.
• When adding videos, simply paste the Youtube URL into the text of the post. Please try to only add videos that are properly closed captioned.

For further detail on any of the formatting guidelines in this post please visit the Penn State Accessibility website.

Location: University Park, PA 16802