Many websites have now moved over to a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is generally seen as a means to control the flow and publish of information online but is also an invaluable tool to implementing and maintaining accessibility on a website. This is because a substantial number of accessibility checkpoints can be controlled via a CMS, both technical and editorial.
When implementing a CMS it is important to ensure that not only the published content is accessible but that the CMS interface itself is accessible to content authors (also known as content producers, editors and contributors) with disabilities.
Customising and choosing a CMS
When customising and choosing a CMS software it is essential to flag up that it must be able to handle accessibility. Your software vendor needs to understand, from the outset, the importance of the CMS outputting correctly structured and valid HTML pages. Trying to address these issues once the CMS is up and running is very difficult and costly to do and may result in inaccessible web pages in the interim.
You will also need to think about what format your input material is in as this may effect outputted HTML content. For example, if Word is used as the format for inputted material then it is easy to use the styles in Word to style content. This can then be translated into correctly structured HTML. Using PDF as an input format may cause problems for content authors who are screen reader users.
If your CMS allows users to change HTML themselves during the upload process then measures must be taken to ensure that they use valid HTML. This can be done by training or, better still, by building checks and validators into the CMS software.
Publishing accessible content
A good CMS can help create and maintain accessible websites in a number of different ways:
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Creation of structured content - a CMS can enforce a heading level structure (H1 to H6) for content and stop headings being presented as bold text that only look like headings. Heading structure is essential for screen reader users to navigate the page.
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Prompt for page titles - a CMS can ensure that content authors give pages unique titles.
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Creation of clear URL's - a CMS can enforce clear URLs and remove instances of "?", "%" and so on.
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Check for valid HTML - a CMS can check a page to ensure HTML is valid.
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Prompt for alternative content - a CMS can check to ensure images, Flash and audio have been given alternative text.
Training and guidelines
To ensure that the most is gained from your CMS content authors will need training on specific issues and provision of style guidelines so content they upload to the CMS is published correctly.
Accessible page templates
Providing an accessible template for content authors to work from will go a long way to ensuring compliant pages. Content authors are often people who have other jobs, are busy and quite happy to simply drop content into a template.
Quality control
This is the final step in ensuring accessible content. Using the CMS to automate as many processes as possible can save your organisation a lot of development time and avoid the publishing of inaccessible pages. A CMS can cover many things, such as checking for valid HTML, but manual quality assurance is also essential.
An accessible CMS interface
The CMS software itself needs to be accessible to content authors with disabilities. CMS systems often have complex interfaces, or are Java based, which can make it difficult for screen readers to work with them. The accessibility of these systems must also be revised to ensure those with disabilities can also access them.
The WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) provide a set of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines which should be referred to when making a CMS software interface accessible.