Make learning objectives, expectations, assignments and due dates, grading rubrics, assessment questions, and other course elements clear and direct.

Create Clear and Consistent Navigation

Whether creating navigation menus for a course website, or a module table of contents within D2L, use concise and user-friendly language. Place navigation consistently across your site. This will allow students, including those using screenreaders and other assistive technology, to more quickly find information within your course.

Learn more:

• Reading on the web vs. reading print

Document Structure and Formatting

Use Properly Formatted Headings to Structure Documents and Web Pages

Designate headings (through styles in Word or markup in HTML or formatting tools in D2L) instead of relying on visual cues only, such as: large font size, color, boldness, etc. Properly structuring a page with headings provides important navigation cues to blind users who use screenreaders (devices which read screen content verbally) and provides a structure to format pages properly on different devices and window sizes.

Learn more:

• More on proper use of headings
• Applying headings in Word
• HTML heading markup
• Headings in D2L

Create True Bulleted or Numbered Lists, True Columns and Tables

Use the formatting features of Word or D2L or HTML markup to create lists, columns and tables instead of using spacebar or tab to emulate structure. Similar to headings, properly formatting lists, columns and tables provide additional information and orientation to the screenreader user. Editing and adding to lists and tables is also much easier when they have been formatted properly.

Use Column Headers for Tables in Word and Column and/or Row Headers for Tables in Web Documents

Screenreaders read the column headers in Word tables as the user moves across a row, providing orientation and context for the data in the cell. Column headings also provide orientation for the visual user by repeating column headers on each page.

In HTML documents you can designate both column and/or row headings. This process is more complex. See “Learn more” below for further guidance.

Learn more:

• Watch the tutorial on creating table headings in web documents

Use Descriptive Hyperlink Text

Use hyperlink text that makes sense on its own and describes the resource or destination of the hyperlink; for example: “read more about course requirements” or “Chicago Style Manual Online.”

Vague hyperlinks such as “click here” or “more” do not provide clear information for screenreader and screen enlargement users who may listen to or view hyperlinks out of context. Providing the full URL is also not recommended since the format is difficult to read and may not provide descriptive information.

Avoid Capitalizing All Letters (i.e. “All Caps”)

Capital letters are harder to distinguish than lower case letters and thus inhibit reading. Therefore only use “All Caps” for acronyms or abbreviations.

Learn more:

• Suggested fonts for the online environment
• Other formatting best practices

Break-up long blocks of text into smaller segments

If we create documents which structure pages with clearly marked headings and sub-heading we enhance the ability of students to scan and find information.

Consider presenting information more as an annotated outline, where the information is focused specifically towards the learning outcome(s) for the module.

Images

Provide  Alternative Text for Images

For every non-text element such as images, charts or graphs, provide a concise (100 characters or less) description of the information conveyed by the image.

Learn more:

• Instructions for entering ALT text in Word
• Entering ALT text in Powerpoint
• HTML ALT attribute
• Guidance on creating effective ALT text (off-site link)

Keyboard Access

Confirm that all actions and controls accessible with a mouse (e.g. form fields, submit button, hyperlinks) are also keyboard accessible

Blind users and many individuals with mobility disabilities use the keyboard to navigate through online content. Use the guideline under “Learn more” for instructions on testing your site for keyboard-only users.

Learn more:

• Testing a page for keyboard accessibility

Color and Contrast

Provide sufficient Color Contrast between foreground and background elements

In addition, ensure that background design does not overwhelm or diminish legibility of foreground text (e.g. PowerPoint, Web page, etc.)

The international standard for color contrast for standard size text is 4.5:1; for large size text (at least 18 pt. or 14 pt. bold), the requirement is 3:1. See resources below for tools to measure contrast ratio.

Learn more:

• Tools for checking color contrast

Do Not Convey Information Using Color Alone

Conveying information by color is an effective means for conveying information for many uses. However, also provide a means aside from color (e.g. “form fields highlighted in yellow or preceded by an asterisk indicates a required field”) for individuals who are blind or color blind.

Multimedia

Provide transcripts for audio-only media

Caption Videos

Transcripts and captioning not only assist individuals who are deaf or have hearing impairments but also individuals who speak English as a second-language. Studies have shown that captioning increases user engagement for viewers overall. For videos in the public domain (e.g. YouTube), captions increase search engine findability.

Learn more:

• Who is responsible for captioning?
• Captioning your own videos
• Captioning & transcription resources at Continuing Ed.
• Other benefits of captioning
• Going further – audio description of visual content

PDFs

Avoid Image-only PDFs

If you cannot highlight text in a PDF, then the PDF is image-only and impossible for screenreaders or other tools that read PDFs verbally to access. Image-only PDFs are also generally more difficult to read for everyone due to poor resolution and lose fidelity when enlarged.

If the document is an article from a 3rd-party source you may be able to obtain an accessible copy of the material from an online journal database. Otherwise, use the “recognize text” option in Adobe Acrobat Pro (this option is not available in Adobe Reader) to convert the document to computer-readable text. Then follow the steps outlined in the next item to check and remediate any other accessibility issues.

Run the PDF Accessibility Check to Ensure Full Accessibility

Once determining that the text in your PDF is readable, follow the repair recommendations provided by the built-in Accessibility Checker in Acrobat Pro (this option is not available in Adobe Reader) to fix errors.

Learn more:

• Watch the tutorial on checking and repairing PDF files for accessibility
• Creating Accessible PDFs form Word Documents

PowerPoints

Ensure that all of the slide text content appears in the outline view

Students with visual disabilities may prefer not to access the more visual slide view. See the tutorial below for how to review text in outline view.

Format Lists and Tables Properly; Add ALT Text to Images

As mentioned above for documents in general, use the formatting features of PowerPoint to create true lists and tables. See “Learn more” below for step-by-step instruction.

Learn more:

• Tutorial for creating accessible PowerPoints

Math and Science

Write math and science equations accessibly

Create math and science equations with MathML (D2L equation editor), LaTeX, or MathType.

Learn more:

• Tutorial for creating math and science equations