Skip to Content
NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center    + NASA HomePage
Goddard Section 508 Web Best Practices
NASA HomePage Goddard Space Flight Center HomePage
 
Learning About Section 508 Developing for Section 508 Testing for Section 508
+ Home
 
Developing for Section 508
Section 508 Living Examples
Section 508 Checklist
 
Living Examples - Accessibility without Style Sheets
(d) Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet.

Style sheets are used to give every page within a site the same "look and feel." If necessary, you can search through the page's source code for a<style> tag, or for a more involved tag such as<link rel="STYLESHEET" type="text/css" href="access.css">.

Some web browsers give users the ability to define their own style sheet (e.g. a user with poor vision may create a style sheet so that all visited pages are rendered with extra large font with white characters on a black background, no matter what web page is accessed). However, if a designer sets the page's style sheet to override user-defined style sheets, the person with poor vision might not be able to read that page. Therefore, it is critical that designers ensure that their web pages do not interfere with user-defined style sheets.

The W3C web site has more information on style sheets: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

Style sheets can be used instead of tables to position data in relevant groupings.

If the page's style sheet is removed, or the user deactivates style sheet capability at the browser level, or the user is working with an older browser that does not acknowledge style sheets, the data must still be sequentially readable and understandable, both by assistive technology and by the human eye.

A common use of style sheets is to make the font descriptions consistent for all pages on a site.

A style sheet alone should not be used to convey the importance of a word or passage.

For color-blind users, or for those with User Agents that do not acknowledge style sheets, enclose important words or passages in <strong> or <em> tags.

Keep in mind that the above method will not make a difference to users of assistive technology. Therefore, above all, important passages should be written in a way that their importance will be understood by those who cannot physically see it.
+ Privacy Policy and Important Notices NASA logo

Curator: Courtney Ritz
Responsible NASA Official: Joe Stevens
Last Updated: March 6, 2009

NASA HomePage Goddard Space Flight Center HomePage