content strategy

Recent column: Accessibility and Writing for the Web

I wrote a column for the Informed Librarian, alas now ceasing publication, on practical ways individuals can work toward compliance with the updated ADA Title II web content standards through their own web writing practices.

Courtney McDonald

04 Jun 2026 • 9 min read

A couple years ago, I got a note from Arlene Eis, letting me know that my article had been selected to be featured in the Informed Librarian Online (ILO), an awareness service. Librarians of similar (or older) vintage than myself will be familiar with this concept: you'd subscribe and then receive a regular update in your email with a list of featured articles, which saved a lot of time in scanning new tables of contents. There might also be regular columns covering timely topics or other handy items included in each email.

ILO had been publishing monthly since 2003, so I was naturally familiar with it, and with Arlene, who has served as editor throughout its entire run. Later, she asked if I'd like to contribute a guest column, and I did so twice.

I feel quite sad to learn that ILO will cease publication following the current issue, May/June 2026. It feels like yet another part of the library profession I joined in my early career has disappeared. Middle age isn't for weenies, I guess.

With permission, I present to you my most recent, and now the final, guest column from ILO, in which (naturally) I bang on about web writing and accessibility.

Thank you, Arlene and the ILO staff! Your publication was a valued part of so many careers.

Column first published in The Informed Librarian Online, May/June 2026.

Accessibility and writing for the web: practical ways you personally can respond to the updated ADA Title II web content standards

A new rule as part of ADA Title II impacts web content produced by state and local governments, including libraries. This article outlines practical ways individuals can work toward compliance with this standard through their own web writing practices.

You’ve likely heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). You may think of it primarily in relation to service animals, parking, wheelchair ramps, assisted doors, and so on.

Many also have some awareness of web accessibility techniques — providing alternative text (“alt text”) for images, for example — and generally support the idea that the web should be accessible to all. Broadly, the four principles of web accessibility are sometimes referred to as POUR: perceivable, operable, understandable, robust. To give a few examples, this includes proper structure for page title and headings, alternative text, keyboard access and visual focus, and color contrast. Some evaluation can be done through various tool-based automated processes, such checking for broken or outdated hyperlinks and scanning for accessibility conformance issues (see further reading, below).

Even if we agree that accessible web content is important, do we all consistently follow through with the nuts-and-bolts actions that are required to create it? To be totally frank, my anecdotal experience is that many people mean well but might consider these practices optional if they interfere with “what I want to do on this web page.”

If you work for a state or local government, the days of optional compliance with web accessibility practices are over! It’s always been the right thing to do, but if you work for a publicly funded organization, now it’s also the law.

In April 2024, the US Department of Justice issued a new rule as part of ADA Title II for web content (and mobile applications!) impacting state and local governments, setting the standard as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.1, Level AA. [1]

Compliance dates vary by the size of service population. For those serving populations of 50k or greater, it’s April 24, 2026. Those serving fewer than 50K get an extra year with a deadline of April 26, 2027.

If this change and deadline are news to you, you’ll want to review the further reading I’ve provided at the end of this article. There are a few exceptions (e.g., archived web content, third-party content, pre-existing social media posts [phew!]) but the guidance I’ve read suggests that these exceptions will be rarely applicable.

The DOJ rule seems to expect total compliance by the deadlines. However, I’ve seen some coverage of this that suggests that where total compliance is impossible, organizations will want to have a robust, specific, and time-bound accessibility plan. If your IT department hasn’t already been beating a drum about this (they probably have) — get in touch with them so you can work together on solutions.

Be advised: web accessibility is not a “set it and forget it” item. Compliance with the new ADA Title II web content standards will be ongoing, iterative, and usually phased (whatever level you’re at, you’ll likely be building capacity over time). If you’ve not been paying specific attention to accessibility concerns, the lift may be heavier as you get started.

The WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines have many aspects, and covering everything is too much for this article. Some aspects of accessibility are controlled at levels beyond the individual content creator (e.g., the technical setup to ensure keyboard accessibility). I will restrict my comments on PDFs to say only that you should take steps to make sure you understand how to ensure each file is accessible.

We will now cover some solid web writing practices that will support remediation. Let’s start with a few no-no’s, so that we can end on a high note.

Web writing practices to avoid: please DO NOT do these things

Ever. Please, please, please, cease and desist immediately any of the following actions.

“Click here” hyperlinks (with honorable mention to “read more”)

This is one of my personal web pet peeves. “Click here” provides zero information to someone who’s using a screen reader — imagine a page with even a dozen “click here” links being speed-read out loud by a screen reader set to go from link to link. Miserable. For readers directly viewing your page, “click here” also adds nothing. Either way, someone scans the page for the links so they can do something and all they see (or hear!), over and over, is “click here.” It’s like a carnival huckster. We are librarians and our link text should reflect the gravity of our profession. More on this in the next section.

Messing with the font styling or colors

Responsive design — where the site automatically flexes sizes and is readable on a smartphone, tablet, desktop, etc. — only works if the style sheet for fonts and such is allowed to do its job. Perhaps from time to time the temptation may arise to add some color or change the font or randomly apply a heading style or (I regret to even say it) use underlining on the web for something that is not a link. Just say no. Don’t do it. These things break rules. What’s more, the reader doesn’t care about what you are writing if the reader can’t read it because of the fancy styles. Underlining on the web is reserved exclusively for links and any other use is a bait and switch. When you change colors, you might also be creating a situation where there’s insufficient color contrast — a separate, additional problem.

Tables employed for purposes other than for tabular data

Following on from the previous item, the use of tables for layout purposes is not okay. Please only ever use tables for tabular data and never for layout. If you have tabular data to present, make sure the table has a header/title and clear labels.

Text that appears only on an image

Text appearing only on an image is invisible to folks using screen readers. It may also be hard to see or parse for those viewing the page for a variety of reasons, color contrast being one. If someone has slow internet, they might have turned off loading images for reasons of bandwidth.

The best case is that the really important information appears in the text, and any image augments and supports the text. In other words: you could take the image away and the text would stand alone. That’s most perceivable (remember POUR). Should you feel you simply must include an image with text on it, provide a (concise!) narrative description of the key points in text as well.

Good web writing practices

Now that we’ve escaped the long, dark, scary hallway of things not to do, let’s let some sunshine in.

The following writing practices make your web content more accessible, and they are also best practices for writing on the web that will improve the user experience for all site visitors. Who doesn’t want that?

Captions or transcripts

Provide captions or transcripts for any audio or video (whether someone is reading or using a screen reader, it provides options). Where possible, I like a caption on images too. The accessibility-related reasons for this are probably obvious. Also, captions and transcripts provide an alternative for anyone who would prefer to read the information in your audio or video instead of listening or watching it. They might be in a quiet place and have forgotten their headphones!

Consistency

Consistency in navigation elements is a big aspect of accessibility, though usually that’s outside the purview of individuals writing content. However, you can be sure to align your writing to use wording that mirrors the terminology and naming conventions appearing most consistently across your library’s website and physical space. An example: don’t refer to the library as ‘Main,’ even though that’s what it used to be called twenty years ago, if it’s been renamed to Hossenpheffer and that’s what it’s called now on the library website and on signage. And so on.

Be consistent so your readers can recognize what you are talking about. When you vary your language, you create cognitive load. People have to think, are these two differently named things the same thing? Whoever is responsible for your website probably has a style guide — find it and use it.

Headings

Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) allow you to outline your content for the reader, providing structure both in terms of meaning and form. They support scanning, visually or with a screen reader. Scanning is the way that people read websites. Headings are not for styling! (Recall the last item in the ‘no no list’ above.) Headings should be applied in order, to show the relationships of related concepts in the text and provide a meaningful sequence.

Meaningful link text

I’ve already ranted about the dark side of this one, so I’ll keep it short. As we noted before, people scan. When you link to something, the text of the link should be words that describe what you’re linking to. I’ll provide contrasting examples.

Not meaningful

For more information about writing descriptive hyperlink text, click here.

Meaningful

Writing descriptive links and hypertext allows the reader to scan for something that will be useful to them.

If you are very used to adding ‘click here’ as a perpetual link caboose, this can take a little bit of work at first. Don’t give up — eventually it will come naturally.

Meaningful alt text for images

Decorative images do not need alternative text. How can you tell if your image is decorative, you may wonder. If you took it away, would the text around it stand up by itself? This is easy to see for a fancy flourish (I’d recommend no, but you do you). It may be a little harder pill to swallow in the cases where you are using an image “for interest” (like a page about renewal policies with an image of two people looking thoughtful over a laptop). Dear reader, that too is a decorative image. In my opinion, the best solution is to skip the laptop picture and just share the info. Otherwise, the screen reader takes up a lot of someone’s time reading out descriptions that are not helping someone move along with their task.

If you do have an essential image, make the alt text useful. The article by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) I’ve cited in the further reading has a great example with an image illustrating charging a phone — they contrast the unhelpful alt text “charging phone” with the useful alt text “plug cable into bottom edge of phone.”

Page titles

Every page must have a title. The title should be short, descriptive, and unique. If you use a tabbed web browser, page titles have almost certainly either helped or hindered you as you try to remember why you kept that 42^nd tab.

It’s okay if the page title is repeated by the first heading of the page, although this will not always be the case.

Plain language

Write clearly and use words that are easy to understand. That’s really the essence of plain language. For a more in-depth explanation, see the reference in further reading below.

Your writing is an important part of compliance with ADA Title II standards

There you have it: a few foundational practices for integrating basic web accessibility considerations into writing and editing library web content that you can start doing today, right from your keyboard.

These practices are key to good web writing, which is usable and useful all around. The ultimate goal is to internalize accessible web writing practices to become second nature as we design, revise, and create content.

References

World Wide Web Consortium. 2025. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Edited by Andrew Kirkpatrick, Joshue O Connor, Alastair Campbell, and Michael Cooper. June 5. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/.