Suggestions for Making Courses Accessible

Clear Navigation

• Navigation through the course should be consistent, logical, and efficient.

• The course’s navigation strategies should facilitate ease of movement through the course and course activities—especially for screen readers.

• Consistent layout and design should be employed throughout the course.

• Links, files, and icons should be labeled with easy-to-understand, self-describing, and meaningful names.

• The hierarchy of material in a page or document is clearly indicated through heading styles (e.g., Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.).

Accessibility Information

Consider including a statement in the syllabus informing students that they can receive accommodations from the Educational Access Center (EAC).

• Please inform students they can also email the EAC at eacinfo@boisestate.edu, and to indicate they are online students when contacting the EAC.

Include a statement and/or link in the syllabus and/or course about the accessibility of all required technologies. For example, you could include a statement about the accessibility of the Learning Management System and related tools including the following:

• Canvas statement on Accessibility for All

• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act issued in the United States federal government

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

If an accessibility statement does not exist for a particular technology, a statement should be included that explains that the accessibility statement does not exist.

Alternative Access

eCampus Center encourages instructors to look for places where the course does some of the following suggestions well, not just the weak points.

• Use ALT tags to provide a clear text alternative for all images, including image buttons and image maps/hot spots.

• Provide a transcript for all audio content. Provide a text-based alternative for animations.

• Whenever possible, provide synchronized captions for (non-live) videos. (NOTE: YouTube can create automatic captioning for uploaded videos. Its accuracy is limited, but the captions can be edited.)

• Use captions or chat/instant messaging for live broadcasts or web conferences if a participant is hearing impaired. (When storing recordings of live sessions for future use, include synchronized captions with the video.) 

• Provide a mechanism to stop/pause/mute/adjust volume for any audio/video content that automatically plays on a page for more than 3 seconds. (NOTE: These types of controls are already built into the Panopto and YouTube video players) 

• Colors alone are not used to convey meaning. The meaning is conveyed in other ways that do not require perceiving different colors.

Readability

• Use a limited number of font styles (1-3) that are easy to read on a computer screen (e.g., Arial, Verdana, etc.). Use appropriate fonts and spacing to avoid readability issues (e.g., over-crowded lines/words).

• Use heading levels/styles (as opposed to bold text for headings) to create a consistent structure/hierarchy of sections. 

• Use text formatting, color-coding, and/or graphics/animations purposefully, not just to add “interest” (e.g., use bullets/numbered lists to convey key points or group like items, reserve underlining for hyperlinks only, minimize use of italics, etc.).

• Use color judiciously to ensure sufficient contrast between the text and background. Supplement color-coding with formatting elements such as bold and italic (i.e., do not rely on color-coding alone to convey meaning).

• Avoid the use of blinking text and/or any content that flashes more than 3 times per second.

User-friendly Multimedia

• Provide sufficient labels, cues, and instructions for all forms and/or interactive elements. 

• Interactive elements are cross-platform (PC, Mac) and cross-browser, or guidance is provided about the best browser to use.

• Images are appropriately sized and can be viewed in their entirety without scrolling.

• Audio quality is clear.

• Movement through presentations can be controlled (not set to automatically advance).

• Video window can be resized.

• Video resolution is sufficient for comprehension.

• Preferably, audio and video players allow users to slow down or speed up playback.