Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

With HTML, we use tags like font, font size, bold, italic, font color, blockquote, page background color and others to give pages and text visual appeal. The HTML tags are not always friendly to assistive technology such as screen readers. Older screen readers would read out loud some of the html tags in the background. It is desirable to NOT use HTML tags.

The use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is another, newer way to do the same thing, and it is the preferred method of styling text and pages in your HTML documents. By using Cascading Style Sheets, you can remove most of the HTML tags from your documents. CSS is a lot easier to use than HTML, and it is less time consuming than using HTML. Most commercial (and many private) Web sites are already using some part of CSS.

Some people with visual disabilities choose to use their own style sheets in lieu of the Web author's styles. For example, they might need to view the text in a bigger font size or different color contrast.

If you use style sheets, test your pages in different browsers, and test them without the style sheet information. The object of turning off the styles in you pages is to see if they are still legible. If your pages "degrade gracefully" when you test them in different browsers or remove the styles, then you can be fairly assured that visitors to your site will have a similar experience.

If you are interested in learning more about cascading style sheets (CSS), contact us at the Accessibility Office at the Center for Excellence in Teaching. Use the Contact Us link on the left navigation bar. Alternately if you would like to explore CSS on your own, visit the W3 Schools site. They have excellent information on many Web technologies.

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