Journal Accessibility

Why It Matters

Accessibility is one of LibraryPress@UF’s core values. In an increasingly digital world, particularly for presses with born-digital publications such as ours, it is paramount to provide our content accessibly to all readers. Accessibility is for everyone!

Principles

WCAG defines four primary principles of accessibility:1

  1. Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
  2. Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable.
  3. Understandable: Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
  4. Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

Best Practices for OJS Accessibility

Website Accessibility

The OJS 3.3+ Default Theme has been audited and remediated for accessibility. Check out OJS’s full accessibility statement. The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) has also developed documentation for developing inclusive and accessible theming of OJS websites.

Color

When using color on your OJS site, be sure to check the contrast for maximum readability! Below is a quick breakdown for the color contrast ratios WCAG recommends, with AA being the minimum standard and AAA being the enhanced standard. WebAim’s Contrast Checker is a great tool for this! WCAG 2.2 also recommends not using color as the only method of emphasizing or noting the importance of information.2

TypeWCAG 2.2 AAWCAG 2.2 AAA
Normal text4.5:17:1
Large text*3:14.5:1
Incidental**NoneNone
Logotypes***NoneNone

* Large text is defined by WCAG as at least 18 point or 14 point bold or font size that would yield equivalent size for Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) fonts.

** Incidental is defined by WCAG as text or images of text that are part of an inactive user interface component, that are pure decoration, that are not visible to anyone, or that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content.

*** Logotype is defined by WCAG as text that is part of a logo or brand name.

Alternative (Alt) Text

Alternative text, more commonly known as alt text, is a description that conveys the meaning of an image or visual component. It is used to make visual content accessible to folks with visual disabilities or for folks with low bandwidth that cannot support image display. Alt text should be provided for all images, unless decorative or the text is present elsewhere on the page. Use descriptive language and avoid using “image of…” at the start of your description.

Decorative images are defined as images used for aesthetic purposes, provide no information, and/or have no function beyond aesthetics.

W3C’s tips and tricks for alt text and WCAG 2.2 guidance may be useful. PKP also provides guidance on how to write alt text.

Page Structure

Use appropriate heading levels in HTML when writing web content. Use descriptive titles and headings across your website. Heading levels should not be skipped in the ordering (e.g. <h1>, <h2>, <h3>) so that screen readers can correctly navigate through a page.

PKP also recommends creating journal documentation as static HTML pages rather than uploading PDFs for maximum accessibility.

This is pulled from PKP’s page structure guidance and headings structure guidance. For more specific guidance, please refer to WCAG 2.2’s guideline 2.4, navigable. WCAG 2.2 also provides an exhaustive list on HTML techniques.

Descriptive Links

Creating descriptive links/URLs allows screen reader users to determine the purpose of a link and skip it if they are not interested in it. Link text needs to be:

  • Descriptive. URL text should be understood without additional context.
  • Concise. Use keywords.
  • Unique.
  • Visually distinct. URLs are usually underlined and in color. If you choose not to use the default blue, be sure to select a color with sufficient contrast.

This is pulled from PKP’s guidance on accessible hyperlinks.

PDF Accessibility

Most journals on OJS use PDF galleys. PDFs are accessible when:3

  • Information can be read by an assistive device, such as screen readers. This means they need to be appropriately tagged.
  • There is a hierarchy of headings for clarity and understanding.
  • Lists, tables, and paragraphs are appropriately tagged and marked.
  • Important images have informative alt text and unimportant images/graphics have empty alt text.
  • There is a correct tab order for keyboard-only users.
  • There is accurate metadata.

While PDFs are not considered fully accessible, there are ways to increase their accessibility.

  1. Ensure that your source document (whether Word, Google Doc, PowerPoint, InDesign, etc.) is as accessible as possible prior to converting to PDF.
  2. When converting your source document to PDF, use settings that retain tags and accessibility formatting. Avoid “Print to PDF.”
  3. Once you have created a PDF, check for the following:4
    • Tags. Open the Tags panel (View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags) and make sure everything is appropriately tagged. The Autotag feature may be useful to start if you have none.
      • You will probably have heading tags (H1-H6), list tags (L, LI, LBody), paragraph tags (P), and link tags (Link).
    • Reading order. The order of the tags displayed in the Tags panel is called the Reading Order. Make sure the order of the tags matches the order of the content.
    • Alt text. Informative images should be tagged as <figure> and have useful alt text.
    • Color contrast.
    • File properties. Add and/or verify your PDF’s metadata, and be sure to double-check security settings.
  4. For additional needs and guidance, please check WCAG 2.2’s PDF techniques. This is up-to-date as of December 2024.

For additional guidance on other galley types supported by OJS, please visit PKP’s guidance on creating accessible galley files.

The Ultimate Accessible Galley: HTML

If you’re looking to implement the most accessible galley type, you’ll need to do some extra work and develop HTML files for each article/issue.

Workshop: Introduction to Accessibility for Journals

In September 2025, the LibraryPress@UF hosted an introductory workshop on developing accessible galleys for OJS. The recording is available on the UF Libraries’ YouTube page.

Download the slides here

Resources & Tools

Resources

Tools

  • PAVE: Free software that automatically corrects PDFs for accessibility (5MB max).
  • WAVE (Web accessibility evaluation tool): A suite of evaluation tools designed for evaluating the accessibility of web content. Paste a web page address (URL) to evaluate its accessibility.
  • WebAIM Contrast Checker: Used to check the contrast ratio of two colors for optimal readability. Great for designing journal branding materials, such as cover images, logos, etc.

* Most relevant to creating accessible PDFs for OJS

Footnotes

  1. W3C, “Introduction to Understanding WCAG 2.2: Understanding the Four Principles of Accessibility,” https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/intro#understanding-the-four-principles-of-accessibility ↩︎
  2. W3C, “WCAG 2.2, Success Criterion 1.4.1 Use of Color,” https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#use-of-color ↩︎
  3. UCSF, “PDF Accessibility,” https://it.ucsf.edu/how-to/pdf-accessibility ↩︎
  4. Harvard, “Creating Accessible PDFs,” https://accessibility.huit.harvard.edu/pdf ↩︎
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