Accessibility Support
Accessibility Resources for Document Authors
Social Security Administration document authors use a variety of accessibility guides and training materials to make the content provided by SSA accessible. SSA makes these resources available as a public service to assist anyone interested in authoring accessible electronic documents.
Checklist for Document Authoring & Testing
Social Security strives to make all electronic documents on our website accessible by providing an equivalent HTML version. If it's not feasible to do so, our objective is to offer each electronic document in a format that is accessible. While the Section 508 accessibility standards currently lack specific technical instructions regarding accessible electronic documents, our agency follows certain guidelines to create and evaluate the accessibility of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF documents.
Alternative Text Guide
Alternative text is used to describe images, charts, diagrams, buttons, and other elements in a way that provides information to users. However, there can be issues if the alternative text is incorrect, confusing, or lacks the necessary context. The SSA aims to create meaningful alternative text by following the guidance in this reference guide.