The NC State Theme, the university’s WordPress theme, is available through the NC State Web Platform. It is designed and frequently updated to follow digital accessibility requirements. That means building an accessible website is easy for students, faculty, staff, units and colleges.

While many digital accessibility fundamentals are built into the theme, anyone maintaining university websites is responsible for ensuring their websites are accessible.

Headings

Structure your page content using headings. This makes your content easier to navigate and be read by screen readers.

• The page title will be an H1 by default.
• Use H2 for main headings in the body.
• Don’t skip headings. Subsections should follow a logical order (H2→H3→H4).
  • There is currently no way to change the size of headers in the NC State Theme. Don’t choose a different header to make the font smaller.
• Try to keep heading depth manageable. The deeper the headings, the harder they are to follow.

Tables

• Only use tables to display data, not to format content.
• Keep tables as simple as possible. If you need a more complex structure, consider using a different block.
• In the Block Settings, toggle Header section on. This will ensure the header is tagged properly. Include meaningful header text for each column.

Images

• Add alt text that is short, descriptive and provides context for your images.
• Alt text added through the Media Library will populate if you reuse that image across your website. Alt text added through the Block Settings will only appear on that webpage.
• Captions on images may be useful to tell your story, but they are not a replacement for alt text.
• Where possible, avoid text on images. If your image includes text, add it to the alt text.

Links

• Always link meaningful text instead of including the full URL, which is difficult for screen readers.
• Meaningful text means clearly describing where the link points.
  • For example, “Learn more about roles and responsibilities” is more descriptive than simply linking “Learn more.”
• Consider using the Button block to make links stand out.

Accessibility Checkers

Pope Tech Accessibility Scanner

The Pope Tech Accessibility Scanner is a powerful tool that automatically scans NC State webpages for accessibility issues. It provides detailed reports that can help you remediate errors on your websites.

WAVE

WAVE offers a browser extension for testing individual webpages. This is a great option if you need to quickly check the accessibility of a page.

Additional Resources for Developers

These resources may be especially helpful if you’re developing a website outside of the NC State Web Platform.