Document Accessibility

Your Responsibility as Author

As the author of your disquisition, you alone are responsible for making your document compliant. If you are using a Graduate School template, using the pre-formatted styles in adherence with the Graduate School Format Guidelines will meet the Section 508 accessibility requirements. However, items 9, 10, 12, 14, and 15 from the Section 508 guidelines pertain to your individual content and cannot be handled automatically by the template.

Item 9: Sections in different languages have a corresponding language attribute

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.

Item 10: Images and other objects have alternative text

Requirements:

1. All “Figures” have alternative text that describes its purpose/function.
2. All captions describe the purpose/function of associated images/objects.
3. Descriptive text conveys the purpose and/or function of the image/object.

If your document contains images (such as figures, schemes, etc.), these images must have alt-text that describes the image. 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 for more information on this process.

Item 12: The document contains links and/or controls

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.

If your document contains URLs, the destination and purpose of the URL should be clear, regardless of whether they are 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 " or "The code found in this section can be found on our GitHub repository: https://github.com".

Item 14: The document contains color and/or sensory characteristics

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.

Item 15: Color contrast

Requirements:

1. Text and Large Text (including images of text) pass with the Color Contrast Analyzer.

Text within your document should be black, with few exceptions. By contrast, page backgrounds must always be white, yielding a contrast ratio of 21:1 using these default settings. If you use colored text within your paragraphs, the contrast ratio cannot be less than 4.5:1. You may use the WebAIM Contrast Checker to test color contrast.

Additionally, if you overlay text onto an image or have created an image of text, that text must have a contrast ratio of 3:1 to its background. With the exception of images of text, text within an image itself is not required to meet this contrast ratio; however, we do recommend using high-contrast text in your figures, schemes, and other images in order to improve readability.

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 for Your Disquisition

The following eighteen items are required for your document to be compliant with NDUS Policy 1203.1. Thirteen of these requirements are built-in to the templates provided by the Graduate School through the use of Word styles (October 2025 templates and later only). The remaining five items require your attention; see below for more information on these items.

1. Document properties
   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.
2. The document contains renderable content
   1. The document’s content appears in the Content Pane
   2. Optical Corrector Recognition (OCR) was performed on all scanned pages.
3. The PDF is tagged
   1. When viewing the Tags Pane, tags are visible.
4. The tags follow the visual/logical reading order of the document
   1. All meaningful content is associated with the correct tag.
   2. All tags follow the visual/logical reading order of the page.
5. The document has decorative content
   1. All decorative content (text and objects) are tagged as <Artifact>
   2. Repeated content such as repeated headers and footers are tagged as <Artifact>
6. Vital information in headers, footers, and watermarks is duplicated in the document’s text at least once
   1. Vital information is duplicated as tagged content.
7. Headings are tagged with a <H>-<H6> Heading tag
   1. Heading tags match document headings and follow the visual outline.
   2. All non-standard heading tags map to standard heading tags.
8. Lists are tagged correctly
   1. Lists have a parent tag and have one or more nested list item tags. Example <L> and <LI>.
9. Sections in different languages have a corresponding language attribute
   1. The tag’s property associated with the language change shows the selection’s language or corresponding two-letter code.
10. Images and other objects have alternative text
    1. All “Figures” have alternative text that describes its purpose/function.
    2. All captions describe the purpose/function of associated images/objects.
    3. Descriptive text conveys the purpose and/or function of the image/object.
11. The document contains data tables
    1. Tables are identified with a <Table> tag.
    2. Table header cells have a <TH> tag and data cells have a <TD> tag.
    3. Row/column span match the layout, and cells have scope and unique IDs.
    4. Data cells are associated with corresponding header cells.
12. The document contains links and/or controls
    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.
13. The document contains fillable form elements
    1. Each form field has a tooltip that matches the label or instruction.
    2. Tab order matches the visual/logical order of form fields.
14. The document contains color and/or Sensory characteristics
    1. Meaning of color or other sensory characteristics is duplicated in text.
15. Color contrast
    1. Text and Large Text (including images of text) pass with the Color Contrast Analyzer.
16. The PDF contains meaningful audio-only, video-only, or synchronized media objects
    1. Audio-only objects have a transcript that is accurate and complete
    2. Video-only objects have text description that is accurate and complete
    3. Synchronized media (audio and video) have synchronized captions and audio description that are accurate and complete
17. The document has no flashing objects
    1. Flashing objects are excluded from the document.
18. An alternative, accessible version is provided if the PDF cannot be made fully Section 508 compliant
    1. Alternate versions are equivalent and up to date.

Optional Settings

The following information describes settings you may use in your disquisition to improve its accessibility. These settings are optional.

General Document Settings

• 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)

Tables, Figures, Schemes, and Other Non-text Items

The following information describes settings you may use in your disquisition to improve its accessibility. 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 3:1 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.