A practical accessibility checklist for online newspapers

News articles are read on different screens and with different input methods. A reader may enlarge text on a phone, navigate with a keyboard, or scan headings and links with a screen reader. Accessibility is not a separate feature for one audience. It is an editorial practice that preserves structure and meaning when the reading environment changes.

A small newsroom cannot solve every issue at once. It can, however, separate checks performed while writing, checks performed before publication, and checks performed when templates change. This guide turns accessibility into a repeatable newsroom workflow without assuming a dedicated accessibility team.

Begin with the tasks readers need to complete

List what a reader must be able to do on the page: identify the headline, read the story, understand an image, follow a related link, operate media, or submit a tip or subscription form. A review focused only on appearance can miss blocked keyboard paths and unclear error messages.

Choose representative pages instead of testing the entire archive at once. Include a standard article, an image-heavy story, a table, a video story, search results, and a subscription or contact form. Prioritize high-traffic pages and new templates while keeping important evergreen service pages in the sample.

For every issue, record the URL, device and browser, steps to reproduce, expected result, and actual result. “Tab focus does not reach the related-story link after the share controls” is actionable. “Accessibility is poor” is not. A precise record also makes verification possible after a fix.

Use heading structure for meaning, not appearance

The article headline should be the main page heading, and subheadings should follow the hierarchy of the story. Selecting a heading merely to obtain larger text, or skipping levels to imitate a visual style, makes the document harder to scan with assistive technology.

Read the subheadings by themselves. They should reveal the progression of the article. Descriptive headings are more useful than a sequence of vague labels such as “First” and “Next.” They also provide navigation points for readers scanning a long article visually.

Use bold text for emphasis rather than as a substitute for a heading. Apply meaningful editor controls for quotations, lists, and tables instead of reproducing their appearance manually. After pasting from another document, check for empty headings and unintended formatting.

Write alternative text for the editorial context

Alternative text is not a complete inventory of everything visible in a photograph. It replaces information that the image contributes when the image cannot be seen or loaded. The same photograph may need different wording when it serves a different role in another story.

For a news photograph, identify the relevant person, action, and setting without adding unsupported interpretation. For a chart or map, do not stop at “chart image.” State the trend or comparison used in the article. When exact values matter, provide an accessible table or a link to the underlying source.

Mark purely decorative images so they do not interrupt reading. If meaningful words appear only inside an image, provide those words in the article or alternative text. Do not publish a file name or a bundle of generated keywords without a contextual human review.

Captions and alternative text have different jobs. A caption can display credit, date, location, and reporting context to everyone. Alternative text conveys the image's relevant visual information. The two fields do not need to repeat the same long sentence.

Make each link understandable on its own

Screen-reader users may browse a list of links separately from the surrounding paragraphs. Repeated links named “here,” “more,” or a bare URL are difficult to distinguish. Use text that describes the result, such as “view the event schedule” or “download the source data.”

Indicate unusual behavior such as opening a new window or downloading a file. For a PDF or spreadsheet, identify the format and, when useful, the file size. Do not rely on color alone to distinguish links; retain an underline or another clear visual cue.

Closely packed links are difficult to tap and can disrupt reading. Remove duplicate links to the same destination, and make every headline in a related-story list understandable independently. Include important external links in periodic broken-link checks after publication.

Provide an alternative path for video and audio

Captions should cover spoken words and meaningful sounds in video. When automatic captions are used, a person should review names, places, numbers, and specialist terms. Identify speakers when they are not visually obvious and the distinction matters.

Important information presented only on screen also needs another path. Slides, displayed figures, signs, or a silent demonstration may require narration or a concise explanation in the article. For audio stories, provide a transcript or a sufficiently complete written account of the key information.

Readers must be able to reach play, pause, and volume controls with a keyboard. Avoid automatic playback and allow moving or flashing content to be paused. Test embedded third-party players inside the actual article rather than assuming the provider's demonstration behaves the same way.

Do not assign meaning to color or size alone

Breaking-news status, corrections, premium access, and selected navigation cannot depend on one color. Add a text label, explained icon, border, or pattern. In charts, distinguish series with direct labels or line styles as well as color.

Check whether body text, captions, controls, and metadata remain distinguishable from their backgrounds. Text over photographs, pale gray timestamps, and links that resemble disabled controls are common weak points. Brand colors can remain part of the design while foreground and background combinations are adjusted.

Enlarge text in the browser and check for clipping or overlapping controls. Readers should not need continuous horizontal movement to read an article at a narrow width or enlarged size. Fixed banners and consent prompts must not cover the enlarged body text.

Navigate the entire flow with a keyboard

Put the mouse aside and use Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Space, and arrow keys. The current focus must remain visible. Focus should not become trapped in a menu or dialog, and a skip-to-content link should move to the intended destination.

Test share controls, galleries, expandable sections, consent dialogs, and media players. A keyboard sequence that differs sharply from the visual sequence can make context difficult to follow. When a dialog closes, focus should return to a sensible control rather than disappearing at the top of the page.

Every field in a tip, contact, or subscription form needs a clear label. Do not communicate required status through color or an unexplained symbol alone. An error should identify the affected field and explain how to correct it while preserving the reader's other entries whenever possible.

Keep data tables simple and explicit

Use a table to express relationships among rows and columns, not to arrange the page. Identify row and column headers and place units and reference dates nearby. Excessive merged cells and nested tables make those relationships difficult to understand.

Inspect wide tables on a phone. Put essential columns first and make horizontal scrolling discoverable when it cannot be avoided. A complex table can be divided into a summary and a full download, but the downloaded file still needs a title and descriptive column names.

Do not provide important data only as an image of a table. State the central finding in ordinary text and, when possible, offer a machine-readable table or data file. Explain abbreviations and symbols rather than expecting readers to infer them.

Combine automated checks with human review

Browser-based audit tools can quickly find missing text alternatives, some contrast failures, and invalid structural patterns. They cannot decide whether alternative text fits the story, whether a heading is useful, or whether the keyboard sequence makes editorial sense.

Use automated checks as a repeatable baseline. Record the sample pages, date, tool version, and findings so template changes can be compared. A high score is not a reason to skip practical use of the page.

A short human sequence can cover keyboard navigation, text enlargement, a narrow screen, hidden images, and caption review. Feedback from readers using different setups can reveal barriers the newsroom missed, but one person's experience should not be treated as a substitute for all users.

Prioritize by impact and repetition

Treat barriers to essential tasks first. A reader unable to reach the article or submit a form needs attention before a minor visual inconsistency. Next, separate defects repeated by a template from defects in one article.

A missing description in one story can be corrected there. Ambiguous names on every article card require a template fix to prevent recurrence. Assign an owner, target date, and verification method to each issue, then repeat the original steps after the change.

Do not omit a problem simply because it originates in an embedded service. If it cannot be fixed immediately, offer a direct link or written summary, contact the provider, and track replacement options. Give readers an easy-to-find route for reporting a barrier.

Add short checkpoints to publication work

Writers can review heading order, link wording, image descriptions, and media captions while the story is still being assembled. Editors can use preview mode to check enlargement, narrow layouts, tables, and captions. Site operators can test keyboard navigation and representative pages whenever templates change.

Keep the article-level checklist short. Separate five to seven checks used for every story from checks triggered by a format. A video story adds caption review; a data story adds table headers and units. This is easier to follow than one exhaustive list attached to every assignment.

On a monthly or quarterly schedule, revisit high-traffic stories, pages affected by new features, and flows mentioned in reader feedback. A concise log of findings and fixes helps identify recurring causes and can become practical training material.

A review you can run today

Open one representative article and read only its headline and subheadings. Compare every informative image with its alternative text. Review link text separately and ask whether each destination can be predicted. Enlarge the page and inspect it at a narrow width for clipping.

Without a mouse, move from the top of the story through related links and sharing tools. If the page contains video or audio, check captions or a transcript and operate the player. Run an automated audit last, using it to supplement rather than replace the problems you reproduced.

Accessibility is not a certificate completed during one redesign. Small checks at writing, editing, template release, and post-publication stages reduce larger repair work and allow more readers to use the same reporting. The practical goal is not a perfect score; it is a newsroom habit of recording barriers and steadily removing them.