Accessibility for Educational Institutions

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and section 502 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) require that the web content, including online course content, of all federally funded institutions of higher education must be accessible to persons with disabilities. Otherwise, those institutions are at risk of being investigated by the Office of Civil Rights and discrimination lawsuits from the disabled.

Specifically, The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a national law that protects individuals from discrimination based on their disability. Section 504 requires reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with physical and mental disabilities. The law was amended in 1998 to strengthen Section 508 that requires access to electronic and information technology provided by the Federal Government. The American Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 is a civil rights law that guarantees the rights of persons with disabilities to have equal access in employment, government services including transportation, public accommodations and telecommunications.

In June of 2010, and again in May of 2011, two “dear colleagues” letters were sent out from the Department of Education and Justice to all colleges and universities about this, but few colleges took any action. Even though Section 504 and the ADA do not specifically mention web accessibility, ADA requires that communication with disabled persons must be “as effective as communications with other.” The goal to meeting the federal mandates is to not wait until a student needs the accommodation but rather have equal access for all without barriers. Some institutions have faced lawsuits; Harvard and MIT face lawsuits for lack of online captioning (Links to an external site.). More recently, Mount Hood Community College faced a similar situation. (updated from 2012) Even still, there has been a remarkable decline in online accessibility according to the 2017 National eLearning Survey of Community Colleges.

If the websites or web content for a federally funded institution of higher education is inaccessible to a person with disabilities, that college or university is out of compliance with federal disability laws Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and at risk for an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and a discrimination lawsuit from a disabled person. Here is a link to some OCR lawsuit examples in higher education: http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/atteam/lawsuits.html

The US Department of Justice has provided notice that it is considering revising the regulations implementing titles II and III of the ADA to establish specific requirements for State and local governments and public accommodations to make their websites accessible to individuals with disabilities. While the standards have not been established yet, the US federal government does have accessibility standards in place for electronic and information technology, including websites. These standards are specified in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. There is also internationally accepted standard established by the World Wide Web Consortium called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 which most web developers already follow. WCAG 2.0 is guided by four principles of accessibility:

Perceivable – Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
- This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can’t be invisible to all of their senses)
Operable – User interface components and navigation must be operable.
- This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform)
Understandable – Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
- This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding)
Robust – Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
- This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible)

Section 508 is currently being updated with the adoption of many of the WCAG 2.0 standards.

Many higher education institutions have chosen to follow the WCAG 2.0 standards, which has three levels of conformance: A, the lowest level, AA, and AAA. Most institutions strive for the highest level of conformance, but set their standards at meeting AA, of which there are 38 success criteria that fall under levels A and AA. This link provides more information about WCAG 2.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#intro-layers-guidance

What is Accessibility?

According the United States Access Board, the term accessibility is often used as the “ability to access” the functionality and environment by as many people as possible. It typically focuses on people with disabilities and their ability to access through a modified environment or with the use of assistive technology. Modifications are often seen in our physical space in a facility in the form of wheelchair ramps, elevators, wider doors and bathroom stalls, and alarm systems that can be seen and heard. Accessibility as used in this course also means we are in compliance with Federal accessibility standards and guidelines as defined in various laws.

Accessibility not only applies to facilities and buildings but also applies to learning materials and online environments such as the internet and its content. This includes web pages, files on web pages, online classes, any files and forms on the web, in an learning management system (LMS), sent to students and just about anything digital.

Making digital content accessible means meeting a standard such that assistive technologies can function effectively. Accessible content not only benefits those with disabilities but it can be useful to other users too. For example, a captioned video or an attached transcript would be necessary for a student with an auditory disability. However, it would also benefit an ESL (English as a Second Language) student, a student in the library (who forgot their earbuds), and a student with a different learning style (e.g. someone prefers to read instead of view a video).

Designing with UDL for Accessibility

Universal Design (UD) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

We should strive to provide inclusive education that supports learners in reaching their full potential. All learners face barriers to learning. These can be seen as a disconnect between the needs of a learner and the leaning experience and environment. Inclusive education focuses on learners meeting the same learning objectives; which is different than focusing on having all learners do the same work. Assessments are also targeted to meet the needs of the learners in an inclusive learning environment. Inclusive learning creates a positive experience and fosters greater success for all learners by improving engage, socialization, and peer learning.

Effective learning should include individual learning approaches or preferences, including linguistic or cultural preferences. Teachers should be aware of sensory, motor, cognitive, emotional and social constraints, as well as any technical, financial or environmental constraints. Some learners are more constrained than others and are therefore less able to adapt to the learning experience or environment offered; for this reason the learning environment or experience must be more universal.

The term Universal Design (UD) refers to the idea of creating products and environments whose features are as usable as possible to the widest variety of people as possible, regardless of their age, ability or status. UD does not remove academic challenges; it removes barriers to access. A group of professionals (e.g. architects, product designers, engineers) originally developed seven principles (Links to an external site.) that are associated with UD.

These principles are extended into the classroom and in the online learning environment and often referred to as Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Universal design for curriculum development to serve all learners, regardless of ability, disability, age, gender or cultural and linguistic background.

In the literature you will see the universal design principles applied in different environments (Links to an external site.) and products. You will see terms such UD, UDL, and UD for Instruction used interchangeably and in different ways. Designing with UD principles does not eliminate the need for specific accommodations for students with disabilities. All learners benefit from teaching that incorporates a constructivist learning approach. This approach helps learners build knowledge by allowing them to link what they are learning to what they already know. This helps people put learning into context. Teaching should be multifaceted. Learning activities should include contextualized learning that incorporates real world experiences, social learning, which enhances engagement through interaction with others, and experiential learning that involves practice. We must also realized that people like to choose their preferred method of learning. Most learners will choose the method that makes the learning experience enjoyable for them. Some learners prefer to learn on their own at their own pace. Other learners will choose more interactive activities. When asked, about their most enjoyable learning experiences, most people will share stories about games they played or songs they sang. As an example, many adult learners recall learning the alphabet through song or rules about word usage or math operators from watching School House Rock television. Some students will even exhibit emotional connections to their most profound learning experience. The important thing to remember is if you design for all users you will likely meet the needs of those with disabilities as well.

Institutions involved in the Quality Matters program will already be familiar with many of the principles and best practices as it is also addressed in Standard 8 of the Quality Matters rubric.

This 4 minute video describes universal design in the classroom

Using UDL to Format Content

While part of the educational process is to challenge learners to facilitate their growth, many learners experience constraints that make it difficult if not impossible to access certain learning resources. Below are some of the more frequently used tips when formatting web pages or documents. More information on these tips can be found in Additional Resources at the end of this course.

Organizing content so it has a logical flow just makes sense.
Color should not be the sole means by which information is conveyed
Use color carefully
Provide good color contrast between text and background
Provide meaningful descriptive hyperlinks of where the link is going and be sure it will make sense when viewed in a list of hyperlinks
Use recommended fonts
Avoid large sections of italic text
Use upper and lower case according to spelling rules
Header structure and styles are used
Images must have proper ALT description
Format lists using bullets or numbers (not manually done)
Remove animations or check flicker rates
Data tables should include a summary, caption and headers for rows and columns
Forms should be properly tagged and labeled to allow tabbing
Present content in small discernible chunks (reduces cognitive load)
Use images, illustrations, video, audio, or symbols to clarify meaning
Use plain language when possible -being mindful of the reading level requirements for intended learners.
Provide practical examples to clarify content
Define acronyms and abbreviations (screen readers do not spell these)
Avoid using unintentional foreign words
Avoid inconsistent spacing such as spacing between sentences. Every writing style guide has enforced the rule of a single space after a period or any other punctuation mark used to end a sentence.
Avoid text that is fully justified (to both left and right margins) in a way that causes uneven spacing between words or characters. This can cause “rivers of white” space to appear throughout the text. These rivers disrupt the natural flow of reading. Justified text may also cause words to be spaced too closely together. This makes reading difficult, and, in some cases, impossible, especially for people with certain cognitive disabilities. Clean vertical margins may be appealing for publications, but the inconsistent spacing is not conducive for people with learning differences.

Color

When learners look at instructional material, their brains tends to remember color first. Colored material results in better attention and memory performance. Additionally, the use of warm types of colors such as yellow, red and orange have greater effect on attention, compared to the cool type of colors like brown and gray. The right combination of colors is also important, because it can produce higher level of contrast. Higher level of contrast attracts more attention and better visibility which influences memory retention.

The most common form of color deficiency, red-green color deficiency, affects approximately 8% of the population. There is also a blue-yellow deficiency that is not as common. Using ONLY colors such as these (especially to indicate required fields in a form) will prevent these individuals from understanding your message.

Be sure not to rely on color alone to convey information. Consider what your images would look like if they only displayed in black and white. Some groups of people with disabilities, particularly users with learning disabilities, benefit greatly from color when used to distinguish and organize your content.

To satisfy both groups, use colored text, but also be sure to use other visual indicators, such as an asterisk or question mark. Color should not be only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. Be sure to also distinguish blocks of content from one another using visual separation (such as white space or borders).

The Color Contrast Check is a useful tool that lets you look at web content through a colorblindness filter.

Color Contrast

A study by G. M. Murch (1987) about readings in human and computer interaction, compared various background and foreground text colors for readability, finding black text on a light green background as the most legible (100%), followed by blue text on a white background (94%), and white text on a black or blue background (75%). One should consider using light grey or pastel background rather than white backgrounds. WCAG 2.0 recommend a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 to meet Level AA and 7:1 to meet Level AAA. Web links should have a 4.5:1 contrast between the link text color and the background, and a 3:1 contrast between the link text color and the surrounding non-link text color. RGB Color brightness is determined by the following formula: ((Red value X 299) + (Green value X 587) + (Blue value X 114)) / 1000W3C suggestion to avoid brightness differences less than 125 and color differences less than 500.

Learners with dyslexia tend to prefer color pairs with a higher color and brightness contrast while people with dyslexia may read faster when color pairs have lower contrasts. For instance, the color pair which was the fastest to read was the combination of black & crème. Black text over yellow background presents the largest fixation duration. The effects are similar to using a yellow highlighter on black text.

Try this Color Contrast Check tool (Links to an external site.) when checking contrast.

Fonts

There is a great deal of research about the use of fonts in education. The truth is that the decision to which font is best for instruction should be made heuristically. Opinions vary so much that it is probably wiser to stick to conventional and familiar typefaces than to employ a font based on a particular individual’s ideas.

Serif or Sans Serif?

There is a widely held belief that using serif typeface is better for long passages on paper-based text because the serifs help guide the eye (readability), and that using sans serif typeface is the best for computer displays and headings (legibility). However, research has found no significant difference when comparing the differences of serifs versus sans serifs for instructional material, with one exception. The use of very small (under 10 points) serif typefaces is discouraged for computer displays because the serifs disappear. Because many learners use mobile devices with relatively small displays, a font size of 14 point is recommended. It is recommended that documents have 12 point for the body text and no smaller than 9 point for foot and end notes. Also, the ability to zoom to 200% is required by WCAG 2.0. There are three typefaces specifically designed for a computer or mobile display:

Georgia: A serif typeface
Trebuchet: A sans serif typeface
Verdana: A sans serif typeface

Fonts for dyslexia

It is best to avoid typefaces that look like handwriting because it causes confusion with some letter combinations such as such as “oa” and “oo”; “rn” and “m”. There are a few fonts designed for disabilities such as Lexia Readable, FS Me, and OpenDyslexic which use different shapes to avoid letter confusions such as (e.g. b-d), but they have to be downloaded separately on most computers. Many K-12 educators used Sassoon and Myriad Pro. Both have lean sans-serif aesthetics making them suitable for dyslexic developmental learners. Geneva for Mac and Arial for Windows systems have similar attributes. Calibris, introduced by Microsoft in 2007, is also suitable because of its subtle roundings on stems and corners. Calibri is now the default typeface for Microsoft Office. Finally, many dyslexic learners find Comic Sans to be one of the more readable of the commonly-available Windows fonts, though some find it too bold, and too informal. Images of text should only used for pure decoration or where a particular presentation of text is essential to the information being conveyed. Regardless of what font you choose, be consistent throughout your course.

*The typefaces for this website is optimized for readability with artificial intelligence. This means the Times New Roman font it is written with will likely be modified for readability depending on the device rendering it.

Header Styles

Using chapters, headings, and subheadings to organize content allows students to clearly see how the main concepts are related. Headings are one of the main ways that students using a screen reader navigate through a chapter.

Headings help to identify the hierarchical structure of a document (e.g., sections, sub-sections). Headings provide a visual cue that helps sighted readers quickly navigate through sections of a document, skimming through content until they find a section they are looking for. Similarly, headings create logical divisions in the content and allow a non-sighted user to navigate a page or document easily using a screen reader. Therefore, it is important to us semantic headings to follow the hierarchical succession of the headings structure.

When it comes to using visual references to indicate the hierarchy and structure of a document, you may be accustomed to just changing the font, enlarging the type size, making it bold or underlined or italicized, creating the impression of a heading. This approach presents problems when creating material with accessibility in mind because screen readers won’t identify the text as a heading. Instead, a screen reader will just “read” through the text of a heading as if it were part of another paragraph of content, missing your intended cues about structure and organization.

To create effective, accessible headings: In an LMS such as Canvas, use headings tag sections with Heading 1, sub-sections with Heading 2, and sub-sections of sub-sections with Heading 3.

When a data table is necessary (i.e. you have a set of data that is best interpreted in a table format, such as a bank statement), use headers for rows and columns, which helps explain the relationships of cells. Screen readers read tables horizontally – cell by cell, row by row – and row and column headers help give the context of the data in each cell to students who are blind, have low vision, or have a cognitive disability.

Complex tables may have several cells within the table that have a unique relationship to each other, and these should be identified by using the “scope” attribute in HTML. The scope attribute identifies whether a cell is a header for a column, row, or group of columns or rows. Table captions can be used to give additional information to users about how best to read and understand the table relationships.

Web Links, Hyperlinks, URLs

Ensure that all web pages and weblinks have titles that describe a topic or purpose. The purpose of the link can be determined by the text alone. That is, you don’t need to include additional information justifying the use of the link. You want the link to be meaningful in context. For example, do not use an ambiguous phrase such as “click here” or “read more” unless the purpose of the link can be determined by meaning in the surrounding content. If the links are embedded into meaningful text, they are much more useful.

Links are often a major method of navigating for everyone, but especially screen reader users. If you think students will be printing the document and you want them to have the URL, put it in parentheses after the link, but don’t hyperlink it. It is usually better if web-links do not open new windows and tabs since they can be disorienting for people, especially people who have difficulty perceiving visual content. If a link must open in a new window, it is best practice to include a textual reference stating a new window will be opened.

Make Your Image, Audio, and Video Accessible

Images, audio, and video can add depth and interest to an online course for all students; however, information will need to be provided in alternate media formats.

Images

Images consist of photographs, diagrams, pictures, charts, graphs, maps. Though, text should be written so it is meaningful without images. Images should support text. Avoid animated images, especially ones with a high flicker rate, which can cause epileptic seizures. A good rule of thumb is an image should reinforce the text material but not add additional information. If the images do add any new information it should be included in the alternate text (also know as alt text).

One useful way to think about images is to ask yourself the following question: Can all students obtain the necessary information about the image through either the surrounding text content or the alt text? If not, then students with visual disabilities are at a disadvantage.

There are other options to provide an image caption or a long description page which requires HTML editing.

Does the image serve a functional purpose? Some images are decorative and do not add any value to the person using a screen reader. Consider using the Null alt text instead of a descriptive text. The screen reader will know to skip over these images. In Canvas, the Null alt text is invoked by leaving the alt text field blank. In some LMSs, adding empty quotes creates a null value alternate text.

As you work on developing your alternative text descriptions, keep the following recommendations and guidelines in mind:

Remember that alternative text must convey the content and functionality of an image and is rarely a literal description of the image (e.g., “photo of cat”). Rather than providing what the image looks like, alternative text should convey what the content of the image is and what it does
For relatively simple images (e.g., photographs, illustrations), try to keep your text descriptions short. You should aim to create a brief alternative (one or two short sentences) that is an accurate and concise equivalent to the information in the image.
For more complex images (e.g., detailed charts, graphs, maps), you will need to provide more than a one- to two-sentence description to ensure all users will benefit from the content or context you intended to provide. In these cases, you should either provide the details in the text surrounding the image or write a longer text description that students can link to on a separate page. You should still include a short text description (one to two sentences) that tells students where they can find the details you have provided in the longer description.
Leave out any unnecessary information. For example, you do not need to include information like “image of…” or “photo of…”; assistive technologies will automatically identify the material as an image, so including that detail in your alternative description is superfluous.
Avoid redundancy of content in your alternative description. Don’t repeat the same information that already appears in text adjacent to the image.

Complex images that include data, charts, statistics are best described in context around it. Other options are to redirect to another web page with a longer description or to use captions. Both of these options require additional HTML editing.

Most experts recommend 125 characters or fewer because of restrictions within the JAWS screen reader. Many versions of JAWS break up longer text tracts into blocks of 125 characters, which can be confusing to users. Artificial intelegence-powered screen readers and image recognition software can help individuals with visual impairments navigate websites and digital content, but they are not mainstream as of yet.
An alt text description is not the same as an image title tooltip. An image title or tooltip is what you see when you hover over an image. Hover over the image below. Alt text is read aloud by screen readers but tooltips are not.

Blue Rose

If you are using Canvas and have images in your course, the following video (4:34 min) takes you through the process of adding alt text to images.

Audio

A transcript (verbatim script of the audio content) of audio files is required to make them accessible; the transcript should be provided at the same time the audio is made available. Learners who have Dyslexia or have a hard time concentrating may prefer to use adaptive technology such as Kurzweil text to speech reader software which allows them tor read and listen at the same time

Video

For all videos, the text must be accurate and synchronized with the video using captions. Captions can be either open (part of the video/always visible) or closed (can be turned on/off). Transcripts of the video are not sufficient but can certainly provide additional benefits to some users. Captions should include all speech content as well as relevant non-speech audio. Non-speech audio is usually indicated by descriptive text within brackets.

Below are some ways you can incorporate captioning into your videos.

Ask the author or producer of video if a captioned version is available.
Contact your Distance Education Department for information about pre-paid professional captioning services.
Upload your video to Youtube (Links to an external site.) and use their captioning service. Please be aware you will still need to edit your captions as the transcript will not be accurate.
Use the Amara (Links to an external site.) service that is available through Canvas
Use video production software like Camtasia or Kaltura
Use CART, (Communication Access Real-Time Transcription) for lectures

Forms

When form fields are not labeled appropriately, the screen reader user does not have the same cues available as the sighted user. It may be impossible to tell what type of content should be entered into a form field.

Each field in your form should have a well-positioned, descriptive label. For example, if the field is for a person’s name, it should be labeled appropriately as either “Full Name” or have two separate fields labeled as “First Name” and “Last Name.” Use the <label> tag or an ARIA property (see tip #9) to associate the label text with the form field.

As you are going through a form field, a person should be able to tab through the form and fill out all the fields before getting to the “Submit” button, or they may not even realize that additional fields exist. Essentially, the tab order should follow the visual order.

If you have fields that are related or similar, consider grouping them together using fieldsets. For example, fields like “Full Name” and “Date of Birth” could be grouped together as “Personal Information.” This type of form organization can help a screen reader user keep track of progress, and can provide the context that might be lost while filling out the form.

If certain form fields are required, the field should be labeled accordingly, and configured to alert the screen reader user. Commonly, required fields are noted as such with an asterisk, which will not be spoken by some screen readers. Asterisks (or similar visual indications) should still be used for sighted users, people with learning disabilities or people who speak English as a second language. Indicating that a field is required to a screen reader can be accomplished by adding ARIA required=”true” and ARIA required=”false” for optional fields. After submitting the form, user will need to be alerted to submission confirmation and any submission errors. It is recommended to include any error counts in the page title (after the user has submitted), so the user will immediately be informed that there are errors on the page. If a user submits a form with errors, the user should be brought to a submission page that indicates what the errors are, and provides an easy way to navigate to those errors.

Finally, the use of CAPTCHA is inaccessible and should not be used to validate submissions. WebAIM has a helpful summary of accessible alternatives (link is external) (Links to an external site.) to CAPTCHA to keep forms free of spam submissions. Be aware of this when using external content as well.

Make Your Files Accessible

The following are various resources on how to make your files accessible. Whether you use these file types in your classroom (face to face or online), post files to a website, or email files to students or your coworkers, you must make them accessible first.

Fortunately, there are some great resources available to you including Accessibility Checkers for your files. Return here when you need instructions on how to make your files accessible.

PowerPoint Files

Notes on making Powerpoint documents accessible by Matt Goff
Documentation on PowerPoint Accessibility (Links to an external site.) by WebAim
Creating accessible PowerPoint documents by Microsoft link

Adobe Acrobat PDF Files

Documentation on PDF Accessibility (Links to an external site.) by WebAim
Microsoft link
Be aware the PC and Mac versions of MS Office have different capabilities when creating HTML tags for accessible PDFs.A Mac users will likely need to use additional software like Adobe Pro.

Leaner Accommodations

Most Institutions have processes in place to establish accommodations for students with disabilities. The common types are accommodations are assistive technologies, captioned videos, note-taking assistance, recorded lectures and test accommodations. Test accommodations often include extra time, a distraction-reduced site, a test reader and/or scribe. It is a good practice to provide students with direction to an Institution’s accessibility assistance professionals. The most common method of doing this is to include an accessibility statement in a course syllabus. Here is an example of one:

“UCC is committed to supporting all students. Any student who feels he or she may need an accommodation for any type of disability should make contact with the Accessibility Services Office in the Advising and Career Service Center of the Campus Center Building. If you plan to use academic accommodations for this course, please contact your instructor and our office as soon as possible to discuss your needs. Accommodations are not retroactive; they begin when the instructor receives the “Approved Academic Accommodations” letter sent by email. To request academic accommodations for a disability, please contact the accessibility service coordinator. Phone (541) 440-7655 or (541) 440-4610 or Oregon Relay 1-800-735-2900 or by email danielle.haskett@umpqua.edu. Additional information can be found on the UCC website: http://umpqua.edu/accessibility-services (Links to an external site.)”

In online courses, a common request is for additional time on tests. The video below demonstrates how to allow students additional time and extra attempts for an online quiz in Canvas.

Video: Extra-time for a Quiz in Canvas (2:24 min) jw]

Technology Accessibility

If an institution uses a Learning Management System (LMS) to deliver web based content, it is required that the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT), or ADA compliance statement is provided to verify accessibility of the technology products used. The VPAT is used by federal agencies to verify accessibility of their information and communication technology vendors. In fact, essential standard 8.2 of the Quality Matters rubric states that learners must have access to information on the accessibility of all technologies required for a course. Examples of these technologies are the LMS, presentation software, web-conferencing, polling, and social media tools, as well as lecture-capturing software, media players, and document-sharing technologies.

Here is the Accessibility statement for the Canvas LMS:

“ADA compliance statement: Canvas conforms with the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WAI WCAG) 2.0 AA and Section 508 guidelines.”

Unfortunately, even though a VPAT for a technology is present, it doesn’t mean that technology is conducive to a student with special needs. Some VPAT may include wording such as “Supports with Exceptions” or “Does not Support” that may need clarification before it is implemented. It is advisable to verify the accessibility claims through functional testing. For instance, an institution might have students who use screen readers extensively, to do screen reader testing.

Recommended Testing

For vision impaired learners, there are a few commonly used screen readers on the market such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, ZoomText, ChromeVox, and Window-Eyes. The video below shows an example of JAWS.

When testing external digital resources or publisher tools, a good indicator of whether it is accessible is if navigation can be accomplished with a keyboard. When testing web content, its advisable to test different combinations of screen readers and web browsers such as: JAWS with Internet Explorer, NVDA with Firefox, and VoiceOver with Safari. It may be necessary to have the product’s company provides you with specific screen reader settings. External sites such as Google Docs for instance are great for collaboration and engagement, but are challenges for screen reader technology. Some visions impairments can be assisted with larger displays or through the use of magnifier settings. The WCAG 2.0 standard is 200%. This standard applies to all screen elements, and not just text. Sight impaired learners also us speech to text software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking ZoomText, and Audio recorders for taking notes as well as refreshable braille displays.

For math content, it is important to introduce and approach concepts in four different ways; algebraically; numerically; verbally; graphically. Audio files or HTML Alt attributes or “tags” are viable options of describing images equations. An example of an Alt tag for the quadratic equation below might be: ALT= “x equals minus b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus the product of 4 a c over 2 a”

x equals minus b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus the product of 4 a c over 2 a

Quadradic Formula

Examples of tools that can be used to include mathematical notation into electronic content are MathML, LaTeX, and MathType. MathML is a text-based XML markup language designed for math equations. Browsers that support MathML are able to translate the XML into formatted equations. LaTeX is a math markup language commonly used in the science and math community, but unfortunately it is not currently supported by screen reader technology. Still, it is fairly simple to convert LaTeX to an image or MathML in most equation editors copying code into an equation editor’s editor. MathType is similar to equation editors found in a learning management system’s HTML editor and Microsoft Office.

For learners with physical impairments, there is a product called StickyKeys to help Microsoft Windows as a means to reduce keystrokes. It serializes keystrokes instead of pressing multiple keys at a time. StickyKeys allows users to press and release a modifier key , such as Shift, Ctrl, Alt, or the Windows key, and have it remain active until another key is pressed. This feature is also known to reduce repetitive eye strain as well.

Conclusion

As educators, we have a responsibility for making learning accessible to all students. Students learn best when the learning experience is personalized to their learning needs. We need to be aware that diverse needs not only include visual, audible, and physical impairment, but also cognitive impairments that might challenge the processing information and the ability to remember. There is a hope that, someday, technology such as artificial intelligence will help remove all barriers for learners with disabilities. Even with the help of technology, we are ultimately responsible for breaking down barriers that limit educational opportunities, and may exclude learners from achieving their fullest potential. The best way to be inclusive is not to be exclusive. In order to do this we must have universal thinking, and recognized that everyone learns differently. Designing digital content that gives all individuals equal opportunity to meet the learning goals, is essential. It’s also not only about good design or the law; its the right thing to do.

“And not just the right thing; it’s profoundly the right thing to do, because the one argument for accessibility that doesn’t get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people’s lives. How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people’s lives just by doing our job a little better?” (Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability)

Web Accessibility by Matt Goff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://pmgoff.wordpress.com/web-accessibility.

B.C. Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit by Amanda Coolidge, Sue Doner, and Tara Robertson used under a CC-BY 4.0 international license.

-My thanks to the colleges and universities that are revising, remixing, reusing, and redistributing this work. We cannot make a difference if we do not sharing this information.

Web Accessibility