pdfs & dorsetforyou.com laura hall senior website officer [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
“PDFs reflect print thinking. On the Web, we need web
thinking.”Gerry McGovern
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/pdfs-are-evil-lazy-slothful-and-sinful-001064.php
The problems with PDFs• Users have to wait for their PDF reader to start - interrupting the flow • Once it starts they are presented with a document with no site navigation
and no way back to the website homepage• The PDF reader has different controls from a web browser – no back
button, for example – intimidating for web users who lack confidence• PDFs are rarely written in a web friendly way – long, chunky paragraphs
with no whitespace and nothing to aid speedy web reading• PDFs are also set up to fit an A4 piece of paper, not a computer screen -
very difficult to view on a computer, no matter what size you view it• PDFs are often huge file sizes – especially if there are a lot of images. So
you can click on them and suddenly find you are downloading a massive file instead of quickly loading a web page
• 40%+ of our web traffic is mobile now• Search engines can’t search text in PDFs
The solutionDon’t use PDFs on the web – put the information directly onto the page.
“Consider your users, and the uses to which they’ll put your published data and content. If in doubt, treat the native format of the web, HTML, as a good fallback option. Web browsers are available on all platforms and devices, and web pages tend to be both passably accessible and machine-readable.”
Gov.uk Service Manual
Some alternatives
• Webpages• E-forms• Videos• E-newsletters• Links
Creating accessible PDFsHow to make PDFs that everyone can use
The best way to create an accessible PDF is to create an accessible source document. Well structured Microsoft Word documents make good source documents for conversion to PDF.
When a source document is converted into PDF it is tagged. The PDF tag tree reflects the structure of the document, and it’s this structure that assistive technologies like screen readers use to navigate the document.
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/user-centred-design/resources/creating-accessible-PDFs.html
Use Microsoft Word
Use headings - Use the heading styles in Word to create a logical document structure. Don’t increase the size of text or make it bold to create the appearance of headings. Treat your document like a book: It should have one title (level one heading) and multiple chapters (level two headings). Within each chapter there may be multiple sections (level three headings) and sub sections (level four headings).
Use lists - Use the list styles in Word to group together related items. If the items follow a specific sequence, use a numbered list instead. Don’t use punctuation or other markers to create the illusion of a list.
Create a table of contents - If your document is longer than a few pages, use Word to automatically create a table of contents based on your heading structure. Don’t use lists and links to manually create a table of contents.
Use readable body text - Use left aligned text. Don’t use justified text. Choose a sans serif font and use the styles in Word to set it as the default, with a minimum size of 12pt. If you need to include footnotes or other text of a smaller size, increase the size of the body text to 14pt rather than reducing the size of any text below 12pt.Don’t use chunks of italicised or capitalised text, and don’t underline text unless it’s a link.
Use good colour contrast - Use foreground/background colours for text that have a good contrast ratio. The 4.5:1 ratio recommended by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 is a good minimum.Don’t use colour or shape as the only way to identify something in your document. Use text labels or descriptions instead.
Use data tables - Use tables with column headings to display data. Don’t use tables to make cosmetic changes to the layout of the document.
Provide text descriptions - Use Word to add text descriptions to all important images in the document. Make sure the text description includes all the information contained within, or conveyed by, the image.
Use Adobe Acrobat & test your document• Set the document language • Check the tag tree • Check the tab order • Check the reading order • Check the reflow order • Check text descriptions • Remove empty tags • Set decorative content • Check data tables • Check active links • Check high contrast • Display document title • Testing
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/user-centred-design/resources/creating-accessible-PDFs.html
What next?
Continuous improvement =• Focus on tasks NOT content• Reduce pages/content to increase customer satisfaction• Better web accessibility for everyone