Web Accessibility

Missouri State follows WCAG 2.1 AA and strives to make official university websites accessible to everyone, including to those with disabilities.

Technical accessibility of the overall Content Management System (CMS), templates, elements, code and etc. are managed by us, Web Strategy and development. Web editors are also required to follow the content accessibility guidelines of WCAG 2.1 AA in creating pages and content through the CMS.

Content guidelines

Write for accessibility and impact

Strong, accessible content is essential to telling the Missouri State story—whether it’s on the web, in social media, or in marketing materials. Content that’s easy to read and navigate helps all users. Following are helpful resources.

• Telling our story
• Tailoring web content

Style and structure

• Don’t create a “wall of text” or large chunks of uninterrupted content. Break content up into digestable sections and paragraphs.
• Use clear, easy to understand language.
• Keep intros brief: one or two short sentences, followed by 1–3 bullets if needed.
• Longer content should be part of the main body, not an intro.
• Provide descriptive alternative text (alt text) for all images, videos and PDFs. A field for alt text is available and many times required in a variety of our components in our CMS.
• Keep paragraphs short—2 to 4 sentences.
• Use only one space between sentences.
• Do not include a space at the end of a paragraph or bulleted list item.
• Avoid bold or italics for entire sentences.
• Follow the official style guide.

Formatting and Layout

• Use headings to struture and outline your content clearly.
• Don't create inline styles for colors or text formating, the CMS automatically utlizes the approved brand colors and styles from the official style guide.
• Don’t use heading tags (e.g., h3, h4) just to emphasize content—use the notice block component available in the CMS instead.
• Avoid using images with text. If necessary, include all text in the image's alt text. Text in images cannot be read by screen readers or search engines.
• Use dashes, not periods in phone numbers. No parentheses around area code. Example: 417-836-5000
• Capitalize each word in email addresses. Example: BoomerBear@MissouriState.edu
• Use email, not e-mail.
• Use spacious layouts.

Links

• Use descriptive, meaningful link text. Avoid generic phrases like “click here” or “read more.”
• For web addresses, create labeled links instead of displaying the full URL.