Accessibility Best Practices for online courses (disability)
1 FILE NAMING
路 Simple and meaningful names
路 Clean up file names if required
路 Avoid special characters and try to keep filenames to 8 characters
CANVAS GUIDELINES
路 Naming module headings, discussions, assignments
路 Adding title/subject as first line in discussions
路 Adding a counter in module headings
2 FORMATTING
路 Awareness of screen reader capability on interpreting formatting
路 Modifying default font sizes by edit or CSS in pages
路 Utilize HTML to add tags and ARIA codes
路 Make links and titles short and meaningful
3 NAVIGATION
路 Reduce or if possible eliminate the use of site sidebars and breadcrumbs
路 Consistency between pages and navigation within site
路 Modular design
路 Avoid the use of browser buttons (ie. Back, Forward)
路 Minimize steps the user needs to get to their end destination
CANVAS GUIDELINES
路 Use modules to guide the user through the course
路 Eliminate the need for listing or access to Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Pages, Files links on the navigation bar
4 COLOURS
路 Limit reliance on colours for context
路 Use of solid colours, contrasting colours or greys
路 If using background colour or image, be able to differentiate the background from text colour
5 COURSE / PAGE DESIGN
路 Simple and clean design
路 Easy navigation
路 Minimal use of decorative items
路 If using decorative items only if it enhancing the user experience of the site/course
路 Accessible by all devices (web, mobile, tablet)
CANVAS GUIDELINES
路 Landing page considerations: Modules or Custom Front Page
6 ACCOMODATION AND FLEXIBILITY
路 Design for all; disabilities & abilities all considered
路 Flexible design with ability to update the site and add in accommodations
路 Plan the site before implementation. Know how you want your site to look like and how your users will experience the site/ course
路
7 IMAGES AND MULTIMEDIA
路 Embed multi-media when possible and avoid need to download to view
路 Provide text transcript
路 Use commonly supported file formats
路 AUDIO
o Flexible file formats (mp3, wma, wmv)
路 VIDEO
o Use subtitles for voice/speech caption
o Use captioning for textual representation of video that includes:
搂 Voice/Speech
搂 Action
搂 Cues
搂 context
o Consider quality vs file size. Larger file size may cause delays due to buffering
o Decide on self-hosting (requires a video server) or link from another service (no control over reliability)
CANVAS GUIDELINES
路 Compatible Video and Audio formats for Canvas ()
路 Videos not be unless hosted on a public service (ie. Vimeo)
路 Workaround is to embed using HTML code.
8 USE OF 鈥淧LAIN LANGUAGE鈥�
路 keep language clean and simple
路 using concise wording
路 keep only necessary content and leave out 鈥渘ice to knows鈥�
路 use short sentences
路 SIMPLE, SHORT, NECESSARY
9 HTML * (applies to accessibility only)
路 Structured HTML is screen reader friendly
路 Ability to add descriptive tags, ARIA codes to enhance integration with screen readers
10 DOCUMENTS * (applies to accessibility only)
路 PDF
o Avoid scanning documents as images; use OCR to convert to text
o Tagging items within document for easier searching (ie. Alt text for images, headings, columns etc)
o PDFs and Assistive Techologies:
o Adobe Acrobat Accessibility guides:
路 Microsoft Word
o Guidelines to creating accessible documents:
o Use accessibility checker in Microsoft Office 2010 and newer
o Use short heading titles