Four Principles of Accessible Digital Documents
Adobe PDF files, Microsoft Power Point presentations and Microsoft Word documents are the most common formats for digital documents. To be accessible, they must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. These four principals are identified within the new WCAG 2.0 Accessibility Guidelines.
Perceivable
Your digital documents must be perceivable. That is, visible to any person’s one or more senses, even if she is a blind user, or one with low vision.
Operable
Digital content must be operable. That is, any user should be able to perform the necessary interactions with it. This most often involves interactive forms and navigation.
Understandable
Information presented must be understandable by those attempting to use the information. That is why it is important to anticipate user-interaction. Targeted users should include people with learning disabilities and people with cognitive limitations.
Robust
Digital documents should be designed for presention to people with disabilities using different, current and future assistive technologies.