Document Accessibility

Requirements:

1. The PDF has a descriptive file name which identifies the document, or its purpose and the Initial View is set to show Document Title
2. Security settings is set to Allowed for Content Copying for Accessibility
3. Under the Advanced->Reading Options, the primary language is set correctly in the Language field.

Setting a title in Word

If you are using a Graduate School template, your document title will be set to the template default (e.g., "NDSU Disquisition Template with Non-numbered Headings"). You can change this in Word by navigating to the File -> Info tab and editing the "Title" field. Enter the title of your disquisition in sentence or title case, word-for-word as it appears in your document. Use the same title in your ETD.

Setting a title in a PDF viewer/editor

In a PDF viewer or editor, navigate to the File -> Properties tab and edit the "Title" field. Enter the title of your disquisition in sentence or title case, word-for-word as it appears in your document. Use the same title in your ETD.

Requirements:

1. When viewing the Tags Pane, tags are visible.
2. Content is tagged correctly
3. The document is bookmarked in a logical reading order

Video: How To Tag a PDF

In Word, document structure tags and bookmarks are automatically handled through the style settings in our template. If you have altered the style settings in your document, use the style settings in our templates as a reference. Bookmarks for headings are generated from the outline level set in the headings' paragraph settings. For example, major headings should be "level 1", first-level subheadings should be "level 2", and so on. Additionally, printing your document to PDF or using 3rd party plugins to make your PDF may cause your PDF to be created without tags or bookmarks; see our PDF conversion guide for instructions on creating your PDF with all its features intact.

For documents produced in LaTeX, you may need to tag your document manually in a PDF editor. You can find detailed instructions for tagging your PDF in the 2019 testing & remediation guide on the Section 508 website. More information on tagging can be found at the LaTeX Tagging Project.

Requirements:

1. Text within images should be at least the same size the font in the paragraph text.
2. If an image must be scaled to fit onto a page, the text cannot be smaller than 4 pts less than font in the paragraph text.*

We recommend making text in images at least as large as the text in your body paragraphs, but images frequently employ smaller-than-normal text in order to fit onto a page. If you must reduce the size of an image to fit it onto a page, the text in that image must still meet the minimum size for all text in your document, which is no less than 4 pts smaller than the paragraph text. Therefore, be mindful of how the image will fit onto a page when creating it, and whether the text within that image will still meet these requirements.

If an image contains small text and the image is smaller than the width of the page, we recommend recommend doing so unless it would cause issues, such as forcing its title onto a different page. If an image is wider than it is tall, consider placing the image on a landscape page instead. If a figure is composed of subfigures, consider breaking the subfigures out into individual figures.

Additionally, be mindful of our requirements on color contrast when choosing text colors for your figure.

*Our minimum font size assumes Times New Roman font is used, but font size may vary across typefaces. If you elect to use a different font from our list of approved fonts, the smallest font will be equivalent to Times New Roman size 8. If you're unsure whether text in your document is large enough, create a text box near the text in question and copy the text into the box, then set the font to Times New Roman size 8.

Requirements:

1. All images, such as figures or schemes, have alternative text that describes its purpose/function.
2. All equations have alternative text that describes its purpose/function.
3. All captions describe the purpose/function of associated images/objects.
4. Descriptive text conveys the purpose and/or function of images/objects.

Video: Adding Alt-text to an Image

If your document contains images (such as figures, schemes, etc.) or equations, they must have alt-text that describes them. We recommend using 150 words or less in alt-text, and to avoid reproducing descriptions already present in the body text or captions. Additionally, it's unnecessary to use phrases like "figure of" or "equation of", as screen readers announce the type of content automatically.

You can add alt-text to an image in Word by right-clicking the image and selecting Edit Alt Text... from the context menu. Alt-text that has been automatically generated by Word is not sufficient to meet this requirement. See page 20 of the 2019 PDF Testing and Remediation Guide on the Section 508 website and Microsoft's brief guide on alt-text for more information.

If your document contains equations, a PDF editor is required to add alt-text to equations. In your editor, use the Contents pane to find equations within a page, then right-click "Show in Tags panel" to be taken to the equation's tag. In the Tags pane, right-click the item and select Properties; in the Properties dialog box, ensure the Type field is set to "Formula", then write a description of the equation in the Alternate Text field.

You have likely seen alt-text in images before--it's the text that pops up when you mouse over an image. Since images, equations, and other objects cannot be parsed by a screen reader, alt-text is read aloud to help those with visual impairments understand your content. Note that if your discipline places titles/captions below figures, screen readers will parse the alt-text before the title/caption.

Use alt-text to concisely describe the information conveyed by the image or equation. Since the images contained in a disquisition often convey complex and sundry information, a critical focus on the purpose of this data and its relationship to your accompanying textual content will be necessary to concisely abbreviate the contents of your images. By contrast, an equation's alt-text may simply be a description of the equation.

The NDSU Format Guidelines require that figures composed of multiple images are labeled as subfigures, and each image should have alt-text that sufficiently describes the subfigure. If you have disparate images you would like to present as a a singular figure, you should either divide the figure into subfigures or combine the images using an image editor, such as GIMP or MS Paint. See our formatting help page for more information on subfigures.

Decorative images, such as logos or icons, do not require alt-text and should be marked as "decorative". While decorative images should not be included in your chapters, you may wish to include them with your appendix material in order to faithfully reproduce certain types of content, like surveys or permission documents. In Word, you can tag these images by right-clicking them, selecting Edit Alt Text from the context menu, and checking the box labeled mark image as decorative. In a PDF editor, use the alt-text editor to mark them as decorative or tag them as artifacts.

Example:

You are writing the results section of a chapter about utilizing UAVs to identify iron-deficiency chlorosis. You include a side-by-side comparison of a raw image from the UAV's camera alongside an scatter plot constructed from color-corrected spectral data captioned "Figure 5. Soybean experimental field plots for various cultivars and replications showing various levels of IDC symptoms, including standard calibration board, and accompanying scatterplot of corrected DGCI and SPAD meter readings using RCM."

The image's alt-text should include a description of all the data you want readers to take away from the image to understand your subsequent analysis and discussion, such as the placement and purpose of the calibration board, the arrangement of soybean crops, the shape of the scatterplot data, or the regression data present in the scatterplot.

Requirements:

1. Tables are tagged correctly.
   1. Video: Table Tags
2. Tables have headers.
   1. Guide: Setting Table Headers
3. Table scope is set correctly for rows, columns, and headers.
   1. Video: Table Scope

All tables in your disquisition should have headers, and those headers should correspond to one or more rows or columns of content. Creating a header is more than just putting text into the first cell in a column or row--in Word, you need to set headers in the table's properties. The relationship between a header and its columns or rows is called its scope--"how much of this table is covered by this header?" If you have complex tables, where headers may span multiple columns, or if you use nested headers, the scope of those headers may not translate into your PDF.

Issues with table headers and scope will most commonly show up in the PDF Accessibility Checker under section 1.3.1. After running PAC on your document, use the guide and videos above to remediate your document. Issues with tags are most often a symptom of a larger problem and do not have a common root.

Requirements:

1. The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
2. Large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1.

We recommend the WebAIM Contrast Checker to test color contrast. If you are unsure of the colors in your images, you can use the eyedrop tool present in the color picker on the WebAIM page or image editing programs such as Microsoft Paint.

Text within your document should be black, with few exceptions. By contrast, page backgrounds must always be white; black text on a white background yields a contrast ratio of 21:1. If you use colored text within your paragraphs, the contrast ratio cannot be less than 4.5:1.

Additionally, if you overlay text onto an image or have created an image of text, that text must have a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 to its background. Colored text that is at least four points larger than the paragraph text, such as text in an image, may have a contrast ratio of 3:1.

Finally, we recommend using higher contrast colors. For regular text, we recommend a minimum contrast of 7:1, and we recommend a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for large text. For more information, see the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) published by W3C and the 2019 PDF Testing and Remediation Guide on the Section 508 website, particularly pages 14 and 22.

Requirements:

1. Meaning of color or other sensory characteristics is duplicated in text.

If your document contains images that employ color to differentiate elements or express meaning, that meaning must be explained in text, such as within the item's caption or within the paragraph text.

As detailed in our formatting wiki, colored text is acceptable in your disquisition under certain circumstances. If you have employed colored text, such as to match colors used in an accompanying figure, the purpose of that coloring should be made clear either in the item's caption or within the paragraph text.

Requirements:

1. Link names describe destination/purpose or describe context.
2. Links have unique names.
3. Tab order matches the visual/logical order of interactive elements.

While embedded URLs are generally recommend, our guidelines require that URLs be formatted without color or underline, which makes them indistinguishable from other text; as such, we instead recommend that raw URLs are provided. When you include a URL, the destination and purpose of the URL should be clear, regardless of whether it's a plain text URL or embedded in text.

Case 1: Within your bibliography, you have included links to the DOI page for your citations. An explanation or description is unnecessary for these URLs because it's clear from the context of the section itself that the URL is a link to the source material.

Case 2: In an appendix section titled "APPENDIX B. CODE USED IN CHAPTER 3 ANALYSIS", you have included a link to the GitHub repository containing the code you used for one of your experiments. In this case, the destination and purpose of that GitHub link should be made clear. For example, including the link in a sentence is sufficient: "The code found in this section can be found on our GitHub repository: https://github.com".

Since URLs should be formatted in black font with no underlining, we do not recommend using embedded links as they cannot be distinguished from other text without mousing over them. For example, in the sentence "The code found in this section can be found on our GitHub repository " we recommend including the raw URL instead, as given in the previous example.

Requirements:

1. The tag’s property associated with the language change shows the selection’s language or corresponding two-letter code.

If your document contains content that is in language other than English, you must set the language tag for that content. See page 21 of the 2019 PDF Testing and Remediation Guide on the Section 508 website for more information on this process.

Font – There is inconclusive evidence that serifs impact readability for readers with normal or impaired vision; however, federal regulations (ADA, ABA) proscribe sans serif fonts in federal communications. The font in your disquisition is not required to follow these particular federal guidelines, but you can create a compliant document using the following sans serif fonts from our list of approved fonts.

• Arial (size 10)
• Microsoft Sans Serif (size 10)
• Tahoma (size 10)
• Trebuchet MS (size 10)
• Verdana (size 10)

These settings are optional, although the contrast settings are required for text that is overlaid on an image (e.g., using a text box) and for images of text.

• Font – Use the same consistent sans serif font in figures, schemes, or other non-text items that is used in the body paragraph text, with a size not smaller than the body paragraph text at 100% view size/zoom.
• Color contrast – Whenever color is used in a non-text item, ensure there is a contrast ratio of 7:1 or greater with the surrounding element. For example, a black trace (#000000) in a line graph against a white background provides a contrast ratio of 21:1, whereas a green trace (#00FF00) against a white background provides a contrast ratio of only 1.37:1. The higher the contrast, the more visually distinct each element will be. (You may use this site to test color contrast.) For more information, see the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) published by W3C.
• Color & complimentary elements – Whenever color is used to distinguish elements in a non-text item, use additional indicators such as symbols or patterns to differentiate visual elements. For example, in a line graph with two traces and a white background, one trace could be red (#AA0000) with a dotted line and the other trace could be dark teal (#008080) with a dashed line.