Accessibility
Accessibility can be an issue for course content, emails, or newsletters. Here are some tips to help make your content accessible by all.
- Images -
- Use alt tags (it's the text screen readers use to provide a description of the image) for all images.
- Try to use descriptive alt tags so that sight-impaired students or staff will know exactly what the image is displaying. For ex., a graph showing the population growth in San Antonio from 100,000 in 1910 to 1.4 million in 2013 should be titled just like; a tag that is too generic (for ex., "a graph" or "population growth") will not be helpful.
- Text on images should follow good color contrast guidelines.
- Images should be legible when enlarged.
- Audio/Video -
- If you use video and/or audio files in your content, you will need to provide synchronized captions for videos while a text transcript is needed for audio-only files.
- Check with your campus IIC/IT to caption your course videos.
- Avoid autoplay.
- Audio and video players should be keyboard accessible on the pause, stop, and mute/adjust volume functions.
- Hyperlinks -
- Use descriptive text descriptions for hyperlinks (for ex., Please watch this video of mitosis—how a cell divides (Links to an external site) before taking the quiz on mitosis).
- Link text should make sense when read out of context.
- Describe the destination of the link. Identify if the link sending the audience to an external web site or to document?
- Avoid using the full/long URL within the text.
- Color -
- Check the background to text contrast ratio for readability on all screens and computers.
- Do not use color as the sole method to convey content and navigation (for ex., all items in blue are assignments, the yellow items will need three responses instead of two,...).
- In General -
- Avoid using blinking, animated text, and images.
- Avoid using "Click here" or "click below".
- Use clear descriptions in instructions (for ex., rather than "What would you call this style of architecture?" describe the building and ask "What style of architecture would you call a large building with a rounded portico, massive columns, and turret windows?").
- If you have activities in your course that require use of a mouse, webcam, stylus, or other tool, consider how you might alter those if you have a movement-disabled student.
- Use your Concourse syllabus since it contains the updated, legal accessibility statement for your students.
- Create accessible PDFs and documents. Both Adobe and Microsoft have built-in accessibility checkers.
- Faculty has access to the UDOIT accessibility auditing tool that makes recommended corrections to make your content accessible.
- Create document structure -
- By using document styles with headers and paragraph tags.
- Do not rely on font size, bolding, indents, etc. only for layout.
- Divide large blocks of text into smaller chunks. Use white space appropriately.
- Charts and graphs -
- Include detailed descriptions for charts and data tables; use descriptive titles, a key, and x/y axis labels.
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