Website accessibility Hints and Tips

Navigation

Clear navigation is critical to help a disabled candidate through the online application process; think carefully about which pages on your site potential candidates need to access to complete an online application.

For example key links are typically your:

• Homepage
• Careers page
• Job search or Job posting page
• CV/application submission page

These are the bare minimum you need to make accessible.

To aid navigation

• Provide a careers link near the top of the web page
• If the link is a graphic ensure it has an alt tag of 'Careers'
• Provide text links to the key parts of the recruitment process via your site map

Combo boxes for navigation

Avoid the use of inaccessible combo boxes as in fig a, instead enable the user to make their choice and then select the go button as in fig b. The reason the combo box in fig a is inaccessible is because it is not 'keyboard friendly' but rather assumes you are using a mouse to make your selection - this means when a keyboard user, either a screen reader user or someone with RSI for example, tries to make a choice by tabbing into the box often they can only reach 'Accounting' before they are redirected to the 'Accounting section' - the choices underneath are not available to them

Fig a - inaccessible combo box Fig b - accessible combo box