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Improving Accessibility

Some students choose to work with UW Disability Resources for Students (DRS) Links to an external site. to make formal accommodation requests. Not all students with disabilities make this choice or know they have the option. Include an access and accomodations statement Links to an external site. in your syllabus to encourage students seeking accommodations to work with UW DRS Links to an external site..

Providing accessible materials will have a broader impact than you may ever know. Students in your class may have temporary disabilities, due to illness or injury, or hidden disabilities, such as mental illness or chronic pain; an accessible course benefits everyone. Because accessibility is an ongoing practice, here are a few simple ways to begin to build accessibility into your course:

Below you’ll find a quick reference for each of these tasks. Learn more about how these practices help all students, by visiting the Practical Skills for Creating Accessible Course Content module in UW Learning Technologies' Teaching with UW Technologies course.

You can also review the accessibility of your course using Ally, the Canvas Accessibility Checker Links to an external site., and the DRS Online Course Accessibility Checklist Links to an external site..


Use Headings

Sighted learners can skim a page and use visual cues, such as larger or bold text, to find the section of a document they want to read. However, for someone using an assistive technology Links to an external site. such as a screen reader Links to an external site., these visual markups are useless for navigation. 

Using styles and headings allows a screen reader to navigate from section to section, creating a more equitable experience.

In Canvas, Heading 1 is reserved for page titles. You can use the style menu at the top of the Rich Content Editor Links to an external site. to apply Headers 2, 3, and 4 to your text. There's no option to preserve existing formatting when you apply Headers in Canvas, but you can adjust formatting after the header is applied.

Meaningful links are links where the URL is embedded in text, which are more accessible for anyone using a screen reader or speech-to-text technology. You can see an example of a meaningful link in the next sentence. Use this step-by-step guide Links to an external site. with screenshots to create a meaningful link in Canvas.

Add Alternative Text to Images

Alt text Links to an external site. is "Alt text is a short description of the image, residing behind the scenes, where its purpose is to communicate the content of an image to people who can’t see it (for example, a person who is blind, using an audible screen reader or Braille device)". Browsers also display alt text visibly if an image fails to load.

By default, Canvas uses the image file name as the alt text, which should be changed to something more descriptive. Alt text is not the same as the image title, which generates text when users hover over the image.

You can learn more about how to provide alt text for images or marking non-informational images as decorative in Canvas in this guide on embedding images Links to an external site..

Use Tables Wisely

Tables are a great tool for organizing information, but when used incorrectly or improperly formatted they can be a roadblock for students who use screen readers. Many of us are guilty of using tables for layout in our documents, helping to make everything neat and tidy. And who hasn't used a table to provide a schedule in their syllabus?

For greater accessibility, it’s best to only use tables when absolutely necessary and to make sure they are formatted correctly Links to an external site. for students to navigate with a screen reader. The Canvas Accessibility Checker Links to an external site. can help you with making your tables accessible.

Ensure PDFs are Accessible

PDF files pose unique challenges for accessibility. In order to be accessible, PDFs must be “tagged,” meaning that text, headings, images, and other elements of the documents have been labeled in a specific way to be readable by assistive technologies.

Image-based PDF files may need to be converted. UW Disability Resource Services Links to an external site.can assist with conversion for accommodation requests. Faculty, students and staff can use the free online conversion tool Links to an external site. to turn one file type (image PDF) into another (text selectable PDF). Links to an external site.

For detailed instructions on how to ensure that PDFs included in your course are accessible, please see the following guides from UW Accessible Technology:

Caption Your Videos

According to UW Accessible Technology, captions are "... essential for ensuring your video is accessible to students, employees, and members of the public who are deaf or hard of hearing. They also help non-native English speakers to understand the video, make it possible to search for content within the video, [and] help all students learn the spelling of technical terms spoken in the video...".

Here are guides on how to caption in the most common UW supported teaching tools:

Canvas: For videos created or uploaded into Canvas, Canvas uses a tool called Amara Links to an external site. to sync your script with a video. Learn more about captioning videos in Canvas Links to an external site..

Panopto: By default, machine-generated captions are automatically added to your Panopto videos. These captions do not satisfy any DRS accommodations. Learn more about Captioning Panopto Recordings.

Zoom: Use audio transcription for cloud recording Links to an external site.

If you have course-related recordings that will be heavily used, you may be able to have them professionally captioned for free. To apply, simply fill out the captioning service application Links to an external site..  If you have had a request for accommodations then your video is not eligible for this funding; instead work with UW Disability Resources for Students Links to an external site. or the Disability Services Office Links to an external site..

Additional UW Resources for Accessibility