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Accessibility Fundamentals

Some simple steps will make your content more accessible for everyone. General guidance is presented below, along with links to more in-depth advice for specific types of content.

General considerations

Clean and structured

  • Whatever the format, use in-built formatting tools, and clean and structured content. This helps with accessibility and ensures accessibility tools can be used effectively. 
  • When applicable, provide the original, editable content rather than converting to PDF. Users can then make their own adjustments. 

Check your content

  • Check your content using accessibility checking tools within your software  e.g. MS Office Accessibility Checker, and other tools such as WebAIM's contrast checker (colours) or the Hemingway app (language).
  • Check your content with a 3rd party, i.e. actual users, or colleagues (who can provide a fresh eye and perspective).

Contact and feedback options

  • Include details of how to contact you to obtain the content in an alternative format (e.g. Braille) if required.

Text and data

Structure

Always use Styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Normal etc.) to help people navigate your content and make sure your main headings are larger than subheadings. In PowerPoint use the ‘Title’ box for slide titles and make sure these are unique. All of this makes things easier for screen-reader users, but will improve readability for everyone.

Formatting

Sans serif fonts (Arial, Calibri, Verdana) are easier to read than serif fonts, and Normal or Body text in documents should use a font size of 11-12. If you want to emphasise text use bold rather than underlining or italics. This is because underlining is often used for hyperlinks and italics are more difficult to read.  PowerPoint slides should ideally use at least 24 pt font.

Links

Links are great for navigation but you need to signpost your links to help those using screen readers. Avoid using the URL itself, and don’t use words like ‘click here’ – instead use descriptive text as your link text.  For a more in-depth explanation, see the WebAIM page on links and hypertext.

Wording

You can’t always keep language simple, but do consider your writing style and how it might be experienced by those with dyslexia or other learning difficulties.  The Make Things Accessible: Plain English tip sheet is a useful resource for guidance on how to make your writing more accessible.

The 'Using inclusive language in education toolkit' highlights the significance of language choice in order to promote inclusivity.

Tables

Tables should have a heading row and no merged or split cells.  Data in tables should be logically structured and the guidance on use of colour and alt text in Visual Content also applies.

The guidelines above apply to any written content to ensure readability and clarity. Further guidance is available specifically for websites, wikis and blogs, Moodle and MyPortfolio, word processed documents, PDFs and email. 

Visual content

Use of colour

Some colour combinations are problematic for people with colour vision deficiencies - avoid green/red, blue/purple and light green/yellow. You should avoid using colour alone to convey meaning – for instance use shading or stippling in charts. You should also make sure that images and diagrams have good contrast and avoid using patterned backgrounds.

Labelling (alt text)

If your documents include images you need to include some text explaining what they are showing, this is called ‘alt text’ (or alternative text). If your images are purely decoration for your written content then you can mark them as ‘Decorative’ and the screen reader will ignore them. However don’t be put off using images, diagrams and other visuals – they can be very helpful for illustrating and explaining concepts.  Just make sure there is a text version too. 

Alternative text should be kept brief and representative of the core information that a visual user would be able to infer, or read directly, from the image.

Text in images

Text should not be used as part of an image unless it forms part of a logo.  This is because it cannot be read by a screen reader.  If  an image does include any text then the text must be repeated in the alt text for that image.

Further guidance on choosing colour, contrast and alt text can be found on our visuals and use of colour page. 

Audio and video

Including video and other media in your teaching can make it much more accessible, but it can present challenges for some users. You can improve video and audio accessibility by providing captions and transcripts, audio descriptions, and descriptions of video images. 

See our Lecturecast and other multimedia page for more details. Delivery of content during face-to-face sessions also affects the accessibility of recordings. 

Acknowledgements

This content has been adapted from a range of guidance produced by other institutions:


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