Accessibility

Who is responsible for Accessibility?

Everyone, including you.

Making your course is fully accessible means every student can participate and access your content whether or not they have a disability.

Accessibility is a shared responsibility, and you as the instructor are liable for all content, whether you own the content or you are using third party materials.

If you are designing your own course, or just adding additional files or content to a course, it is your responsibility to ensure that content is accessible. 

The Department of Justice issued a final rule setting the standard that UW and Continuum will meet for web accessibility.

Legal Requirements

Federal Law

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act states that people with disabilities must have an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from state and local governments’ programs, services, and activities, and includes public schools, colleges, and universities.

Enacted in 1973, the Rehabilitation Act is a federal anti-discrimination law that implicates federal and federally-funded programs.

All public or private schools that receive federal funding are required under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to make their programs accessible to students with disabilities. Under Section 504, an individual with a disability must have equal access to all programs, services, and activities receiving a federal subsidy. Web-based communications for public educational institutions are covered by this as well. By definition, public institutions receive and depend on federal funding, so they must comply with Section 504. That means they are required to make accommodations for equal access, including providing users who are deaf or hard of hearing with closed captioning for educational video content.

Furthermore, Section 508 mandates that federal agencies make electronic information accessible to members of the public with disabilities, as well as employees with disabilities. Section 508 applies to certain public colleges and universities that receive federal funding, such as through the Assistive Technology Act.

Washington State Law

Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech) and Washington State Office of the Chief Information Office (OCIO) Policy #188 states that all state agencies must meet minimum accessibility standards, put primarily applies to the business and administrative applications of higher education, while academic or research applications are strongly encouraged.

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) Policy 3.20.30B is an accessible technology policy that fills in the gaps of WaTech Policy 188, and calls for appropriate, effective, and integrated access to technology for students, employees, and external community members. This applies to:

• Procurement, development, and implementation of instructional, administrative, or communications technologies and content. 
• Current and emerging technologies, including both hardware and software.
• College & university websites, learning management tools, student information systems, training materials, instructional materials, and assessment tools.

Additional Resources

• Department of Justice rule updating its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (April, 2024)
• The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Revised ADA Regulations Implementing Title II and Title III
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
• Section 504 Handbook
• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
• Section 508 Information
• WaTech Policy 188: Accessibility Policy
• SBCTC Policy 3.20.30B

Best Practices

• Write clearly, using the simplest language appropriate for your content.
• Be careful with abbreviations, jargon, slang, complex language, and culturally specific idioms.
• Apply consistent organizational structure to your course pages when creating content.
  • Use Heading, Sub-heading and Paragraph Styles in the Canvas rich content editor.
  • Use vertical lists (like this one, rather than lists within a sentence) where applicable for easier comprehension and navigation, such as assignments or readings.
• Ensure text in documents can be highlighted, copied and pasted.
• Ensure that all graphics are necessary and supplemental to the course materials.
  • Include text descriptions for all graphics and pictures.
  • Use alternate text or “alt text” descriptions when embedding image content in the rich content editor.
• Be careful with data tables, only use them when necessary, and use the simplest table structure available.
• Ensure that all link text is descriptive (avoid saying “Click Here”), and avoid using the URL as link text whenever possible.

Common Accessibility Terms & Definitions

• Accessible: Individuals with disabilities are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services within the same timeframe as individuals without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease of use.
• Adaptability: The ability of certain building spaces and elements, such as kitchen counters, sinks, and grab bars, to be added or altered so as to accommodate the needs of individuals with or without disabilities or to accommodate the needs of persons with different types or degrees of disability.
• Accommodation: Where it is impossible to remove barriers without undue hardship, special arrangements must be made so that persons with disabilities can fully participate.
• Alternative Access/Input Device: an alternative access device or alternative input device allows individuals to control their computers using tools other than a standard keyboard or mouse pointing device. Examples include alternative keyboards, electronic pointing devices, sip-and-puff systems, wands and sticks, joysticks, trackballs, and more.
• Alternative Text: A textual description of non-text content.
• Assistive Technology: Adaptive hardware and/or software and other devices that are used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities. Examples include text-to-speech screen access software, screen magnification software, refreshable Braille display, tactile graphics, speech input software, head pointers, and wheelchairs.
• Captions: A textual representation of sounds–usually associated with television programming or movies; captions are meant to display in real time and to capture speech sounds and sounds beyond speech in some cases.
• Descriptive Videos: videos which have been enhanced with audio narration to describe the visual elements of action, characters, locations, costumes, and sets without interfering with dialogue or sound effects. This allows individuals with visual impairments to full understand and enjoy video content.
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR): electronic conversion of images of typed or printed text (such as a PDF article scanned as an image) into a machine encoded text that can be read by a screen reader, and where the text can be highlighted, copied, and otherwise engaged with.
• Screen Access Software: Software programs that convert the text on a computer screen into synthesized speech and/or Braille. Examples include JAWS (Job Access with Speech), NVDA (Nonvisual Desktop Access), and Window-Eyes.
• Tactile Graphics: Objects that use raised lines and surfaces to convey non-textual information such as maps, paintings, graphs, and diagrams.

Questions to Consider

• Can low vision and blind users access written image descriptions?
• Can low vision and blind users utilize audible output (i.e. products called screen readers that read web content using synthesized speech) to interpret digital content?  
• Are videos or other audible media captioned for those users who are deaf or whose first language is not English?  
• Are you using slang, idioms, or language that may be confusing to those whose first language is not English, or that may be exclusionary to certain communities?
• Does content reflect diversity or does it convey a bias to one culture, ethnicity or gender over others?  
• Is the online course content simple to navigate?  
• Is your content usable if the person does not have sight? What about if they do not have hearing? Or is color blind? Or cannot process heavy amounts of text quickly?

Whether you are working in HTML (such as with Canvas pages, wiki sites, WordPress, etc), with Microsoft Office, with Google Docs, or with other content authoring software, there are some basic and consistent ways to make your content more accessible.

Always be mindful of how you format your content, and try to avoid using unnecessary images, and avoid using tables for layout purposes. Tables should be used for data display, and Headings should always be included for columns and rows.

Headings & Paragraph Styles

Rather than simple using larger font to create visual hierarchy, use the Headings and Pargraph style features built-in to most authoring content. Do not skip heading levels.

Headings are used by screen readers and similar assistive technologies to understand the content structure of a page, and they are also used by mobile devices, search engines, and by sighted readers to better understand the structure of your content.

The largest header (Heading 1 or H1) is used for the most important information, often the title of a website page or the title of a chapter in a document. Heading 2 will be the next most important content, and so on. Smaller headings nest under larger headings, similar to indented bullet points on a list, and a screen reader will understand this structure. Microsoft Word also has an additional Title style, above Heading 1.

Example

In this current lesson topic, the page title of Accessibility Basics is set to Heading 1, with the topics for Headings & Paragraph Styles, Lists, Alt Text, Descriptive Hyperlinks, and Accessible Tables are all set to Heading 2. Items nested underneath those topics (like the Example text immediately above) are set to Heading 3, and so on.

Lists

Use the built in bulleted or numbered lists in your authoring tool whenever you are denoting a list structure or steps. This will be easier for your audience to process visually, and the list structure is used by screen readers and similar assistive technologies to better understand the hierarchy of information.

Alt Text

Alternative (alt) text provides a textual alternative to non-text content in web pages, such as images. This text will be read aloud to a person using a screen reader.

Ideally, alt text should not be longer than a sentence or two, and should convey the content and purpose of the image in a concise and unambiguous manner.

W3C Image tutorial: Everything you need to know to write effective alt text.

Decorative Images

When working with decorative images, alt text is not necessary, as there is no meaningful content to convey. Decorative objects add visual interest but aren’t informative (for example, stylistic borders). It is possible in most authoring software to mark an image as decorative, so that screen readers will either ignore that content, or state that there is a decorative element, rather than content with important information.

Descriptive Hyperlinks

Any time you embed a link to a file or to another resource, you should ensure that your link uses meaningful and descriptive text. Avoid text like Click Here, and avoid simply listing the full URL unless the content is meant to be printed, or unless it is completely necessary.

Examples of Bad Links

• Click here to view the NCDAE’s cheatsheet for creating accessible electronic content.
• View the cheat sheet here: http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/electronic-content.php

Examples of Good Links

• NCDAE Cheatsheet: Creating Accessible Electronic Content
• Microsoft Office Guide: Create or edit a hyperlink

Accessible Tables

Data tables are used to organize data with a logical relationship in grids. Accessible tables need HTML markup that indicates header cells and data cells and defines their relationship. Assistive technologies use this information to provide context to users. The primary key to this is using header rows and/or header columns.

Note: You should avoid using tables purely for layout or design, and you should keep your tables as simple as possible.

Tables without structural markup to differentiate and properly link between header and data cells, create accessibility barriers. Relying on visual cues alone is not sufficient to create an accessible table. With structural markup, headers and data cells can be programmatically determined by software, which means that:

• People using screen readers can have the row and column headers read aloud as they navigate through the table. Screen readers speak one cell at a time and reference the associated header cells, so the reader doesn’t lose context.
• Some people use alternative ways to render the data, for example by using custom stylesheets to display header cells more prominently. Techniques like this enable them to change text size and colors and display the information as lists rather than grids. The table code needs to be properly structured to allow alternative renderings.

W3 Web Accessibility Tutorial: Table Concepts

WebAIM Guide: Creating Accessible Tables

Microsoft Office Video Tutorial: Create accessible tables in Word

Choosing Your Format

In general, HTML will be more accessible than files, and native Microsoft Office file formats are more accessible than PDFs. Microsoft Office file formats are also often more accessible than Google content (such as Google slides). Be mindful of whether your content absolutely needs to be a PDF, or if it needs to be contained within a file at all. If your content can be conveyed using HTML such as on a page in your learning management system, that will be the most accessible option.

When exporting to a PDF, understand how to preserve accessibility. In order for an Adobe PDF document to be accessible, it must be a tagged PDF, with an underlying tagged structure. Some authoring tools don’t support tagged PDFs at all, while others provide multiple ways of exporting to PDFs, only some of which may produce a tagged PDF. You will find more information about PDFs and accessibility later on in this lesson.

If you are scanning a file, you should be mindful to create a high quality scan. Look through the settings of your scanner to enable Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

UW Document Conversion

If you already have a scanned file, the UW now offers an online Document Conversion Service to help students, faculty, and staff at the University of Washington to produce alternative versions of documents quickly and easily. The service is free to anyone with a UW NetID.

Note: The source file needs to be of good quality in order to maximize conversion accuracy.

File Structure

When creating content, you should continue to employ the following tools and techniques

• Use headings
  • Do not skip heading levels
• Use lists (like this one!)
• Use descriptive links
• Add alt text for any images
  • If an image is purely decorative and contains no informative content, then it does not require a description. However, your authoring tool may have a special markup option to designate the image as decorative, so that screen readers will know to skip over the image.

UW Accessible Technology Guide: Overview of Accessible Documents

UW Accessible Technology Guide: Creating Accessible Documents

MS Office Accessibility Checker

The Microsoft Accessibility Checker is a feature included in Microsoft Office that allows users to check the accessibility of their documents. When the checker is used, it provides a list of potential accessibility issues with suggestions on how to address them.

The Microsoft Availability Checker is available for both Windows and Mac versions of Office, in all versions after Office 2010, and is available for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Additional Guide(s) & Resources

UW Accessible Technology Guides

• Creating Accessible Documents
• Creating accessible documents in Microsoft Word
• Creating accessible presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint
• Creating accessible PDFs from Microsoft Word
• Creating accessible PDFs from Adobe InDesign
• Fixing inaccessible PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Pro
• Creating accessible PDF forms using Adobe Acrobat Pro

Microsoft Office Guides

• Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker
• Creating accessible Word documents
• Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations

The Problem with PDFs

While PDFs are a convenient and common way to deliver content, PDFs do not always work seamlessly with many assistive technologies, such as screen readers. PDFs can be complicated and time intensive to format correctly to meet accessibility guidelines, and repairing inaccessible PDFs can produce inconsistent results.

Ask yourself if your content absolutely needs to be a PDF before using this file type, and try to minimize the use of PDF files as a source of online information. Use HTML (such as via Canvas Pages) or alternate file types (such as Microsoft Office files) where appropriate.

Accessibility Concerns

If you are unsure of the origins of your PDF, then it is highly unlikely that it is, by default, fully accessible. Many PDFs are made up of immense content chunks, with no internal navigation. If your PDF is of a scanned article or similar print content, there is a high likelihood that the PDF is simply a series of images, with no meaningful data for assistive technologies to read.

Common PDF Accessibility Errors

• Image only PDFs
  • If you click on the PDF, does it highlight the whole page in blue? If so, that page is one image. If you are able to highlight specific amounts of text and copy and paste it into another program, then your PDF has, at the least, been scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, and is more accessible.
• PDF not tagged
• PDF not having a title
• PDF not having a meaningful title
• PDF document language is not defined
• PDF document is in multiple languages
• PDF images lack alt text
• Tab order does not follow the document structure
• Table headers not defined

Accessibility Solutions

Start with an Accessible Document

Whenever possible, think about accessibility when you create the source files in an authoring application, such as a word-processing or page-layout application.

Typical tasks in the authoring application include adding alternate text to graphics, optimizing tables, and applying paragraph styles, headings, or other document-structure features that can be converted to tags.

If converting from a Microsoft Office document, you should first run the Accessibility Checker, and ensure that you’ve selected the check box option for Document structure tags for accessibility when saving.

Adobe Accessibility Features

• Set the document language
• Prevent security settings from interfering with screen readers
• Add accessible links
• About bookmarks

Tagging PDFs

A tagged PDF includes hidden accessibility markups that, when properly applied, help to optimize the reading experience of those who use screen readers and other assistive technology. Tagging provides a logical structure that determines how the document will be presented through assistive technology, and therefore is a crucial component of creating accessible PDFs.

In most cases, you create tagged PDFs from within an authoring application, such as Adobe FrameMaker®, Adobe InDesign, or Microsoft Word. Creating tags in the authoring application generally provides better results than adding tags in Acrobat.

Tagging during conversion to PDF requires an authoring application that supports tagging in PDF. Tagging during conversion enables the authoring application to draw from the paragraph styles or other structural information of the source document to produce a logical structure tree. The logical structure tree reflects an accurate reading order and appropriate levels of tags. This tagging can more readily interpret the structure of complex layouts, such as embedded sidebars, closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, and tables. Tagging during conversion can also properly tag the links, cross-references, bookmarks, and alternate text (when available) that are in the file.

Additional Guides & Resources

UW Accessible Technology Guides

• Creating accessible PDFs from Microsoft Word
• Creating accessible PDFs from Adobe InDesign
• Fixing inaccessible PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Pro
• Creating accessible PDF forms using Adobe Acrobat Pro

Microsoft Office Guides

• Creating Accessible PDFs

Adobe Guides

• PDF Accessibility Overview
• Creating Accessible PDFs
• Adobe Acrobat Accessibility FAQ