Center for eLearning
Mailing Address
Center for eLearning
91探花
2121 Euclid Avenue, RT201
Cleveland, OH 44115
Campus Location
Center for eLearning, RT201
1860 East 22nd Street
Cleveland, OH 44115-2214
Phone: 216.687.3960
Fax: 216.875.9733
elearning@csuohio.edu
Accessibility Checklist
Word, Blackboard Learn and Web Pages
Set a document title within the head of the HTML page, e.g.
<title>Accessibility Checklist for Faculty & Staff Developers</title>
A screen reader will read this when a page loads in a browser. Write the title to be unique and concise. It helps to put the unique part at the beginning of the title to speed up recognition and navigation, when a screen reader user has more than one tab/page open at once. JAWS and NVDA read the file name of a Word file rather than the Word title, when the document is open in Word. If you set a document title in Word, under File Info, it will convert to an HTML title element when the Word document is saved as a Web Page, Filtered. A screen reader will read this title when the .htm file from Word is opened in a browser. See:
Set your document language in the application you are working with or within the head of the HTML page, e.g.
<html lang="en-us">
In Word, go to File, Options, Language, and select the main language under Choose Editing Languages. If small portions of text are in another language, select that text and go under the Review tab, Language, Set Proofing Language, select the language and click OK.
See:
Make sure your text colors have enough contrast with your background color to meet the Web Accessibility Initiative鈥檚 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at the AA level. This would be a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal font size (12pt or 16px). The ratio for larger or bold fonts is 3.1:1. The later would include 14 pt bold text, or a large font size such as 18pt or 24px. You don鈥檛 have to use black text on a white background for everything. You just need to make sure your text has enough contrast with the background. You can download to get an application with an eye dropper to sample your font and background colors to check the contrast ratio.
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Don't use color alone to convey meaning, e.g. Don鈥檛 present something like, 鈥渢here will be tests on the dates listed in red,鈥 and then list dates in red and black. Instead, use an asterisk to denote importance, and/or write 鈥淚mportant鈥 beside the important thing. Or simply create a separate list of dates for tests only. If you have a line graph chart, make sure the colors are distinguishable by someone who is color blind. Color Contrast Analyzer by Paciello Group can simulate different color blindness. If you can make different patterned lines, this will also help.
Use Word Styles to create headings in Word documents.
See:
Ensure heading levels 1-6 are applied in the proper hierarchical manner. Heading Level 1 would be the title of a document, for example. Subheadings would be Heading Level 2, followed by Heading Level 3, etc.
See:
Select font faces, font-sizes and colors that show well on screen,if authoring for online. Sans-serif should be used for body text, such as Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, Myriad Web Pro, or Roboto. Serifs would include Georgia, Times New Roman, or Times. Use relative font sizes, such as ems or percentages. Avoid copying text set in point (pt) or pixel (px) sizes into Blackboard Learn. Don鈥檛 use pt or px sizes on text in HTML pages. They won鈥檛 scale when a user changes her/his font size in the browser settings.
See .
Avoid using Word's B and I buttonswithin the Home ribbon, to create Bold or Italic text. Use Word鈥檚 Strong Style in the Styles pane for Bold text, and Word鈥檚 Emphasis Style for Italicized text. You can modify these Styles to suit your needs.
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Use white space to create separation between groups of related information.Adjust white space by modifying a Word Style rather than using the return or enter key. Right click on a Word Style and select Modify. Click the Format button > Paragraph, and adjust space before and after. Line spacing within paragraphs should be 1.5x the text size. Spacing between paragraphs should be 1.5x larger than the line spacing within paragraphs.
See: .
Keep line lengths or column text to around 80 characters per line. This helps people with cognitive disabilities and low vision.
Present text in a way that it will reflow and remain visible up to a magnification of 200x without horizontal scrolling. See: . And .
Use Word鈥檚 Multi-column text tool to create columns of text instead of tabbing or spacing. Select the text to be formatted in columns > click the Layout tab > Columns > select your number of columns.
Avoid moving text and don't use images of text. If you have to use a Logotype with text, put the exact text inside the description/alt element.
Create descriptive links, for example, use 鈥淐opyright Advisory Network鈥檚 website鈥 as link text instead of 鈥渉ttps: //librarycopyright.net鈥 or 鈥渃lick here to find out more.鈥 Link text should describe where the link leads.
See: .
Add alternative text for images that convey information or the null alt element for decorative and redundant images. In Microsoft Office documents, you add alternative text by providing a Description for an image, by right clicking and selecting Format Picture and then selecting the Layout & Properties icon.
See: , and look at as well as the sections that follow it for the different situations in applying alt text. If a shape visual is decorative, see .
Create lists in Word with Word's list tool, rather than manually numbering items in the list.
Avoid the use of objects that float on the drawing layer of a Word document, such as Text Boxes, Shapes, Smart Art, Charts or Word Art. If you use Shapes or Smart Art to create diagrams, use a screen capture application, such as Window鈥檚 Snipping Tool to create an image out of the combination. Insert the image with an alternative text Description. For Text Boxes, create a custom Word Style instead, to create the same effect of a call out box. If you insert a Chart, provide a text description of what the data is conveying. Right click on the chart, and select Format Chart Area, then select the Layout & Properties icon to find the Description field. See: . See: .
Create simple tables in Word. Avoid combining tables in one, merged or split cells.
Create table headers. In Word, simplify your tables to create a single table header row at the top. Highlight the row, right click and select Table Properties. Under the Row tab, check the box next to 鈥淩epeat as a header row across the top of each page.鈥 In HTML, you can use the
<th>
element and the scope attribute to designate single row or single column headers. If you have multiple headers, use the "ID" attribute on your <th> table heading cells, and the 鈥渉eaders鈥 attribute on your <td> table data cells to identify which headers a screen reader should read before the data in the cell.
See: . For single levels of row and and column headers, see . For multilevel heading cells, see:
Provide Alt Text to Tables that are more complex. If you have a table that isn鈥檛 as simple as having one header row at the top, you can give an alternative text description of the data contained in the table. Select the table. Right click on the table and select Table Properties from the context menu. In the Table Properties pane, select Alt Text. Add your alternative text description in the Description field.
Use Word鈥檚 built in accessibility checker to help find areas that need accessibility features added.
See: .
PowerPoint
When you first launch PowerPoint, there will be a search entry box at the top of the screen, and templates suggested below. Type "accessible" in the search field and templates that were created with accessibility features already built in will come up.
Click on the Home tab at the top of Power Point, select Layout. From the drop down menu, select the slide layout that fits your needs.
Create unique slide titles.When you work with an accessible PowerPoint template, there will be a placeholder for the slide title somewhere on the slide, usually at the top. Type your title in this placeholder box.
Use z-order on slides. A screen reader reads objects from back to front, or from bottom to top in the selection pane. On the Home tab, click on Select, and then Selection Pane. Drag the order of the elements in the list to read in the logical order.
Don鈥檛 customize colors inside individual slides, but do this inside the theme or in the Master slides instead. Students with low vision need to adjust document colors sometimes to help them read. If you stick with standardizing the theme slides, they can affect the color or contrast change across the set of slides more easily.
Provide alternative text for non-text elements in the same manner you would do for Word documents. See: . If a visual is decorative, see .
Create enough contrast between the text color and background to meet WCAG 2.0 AA standards in the same manner you would do for Word documents.
Use fonts for readability and legibility in the same manner you would do for Word documents.
Create descriptive hyperlink text in the same manner you would do for Word documents.
Use simple table structure. Create one row of headers at the top of the table. Click in the top row of the table. Under the Design tab, select the check box to the left of Header Row to add a visual header row at the top of the table. To make visual headers out of the first column of the table, select First Column. Don't used merged or split cells.
Transcribe any audio or video in the slides. You can use a word processor or text editor like Notepad for this.
See: . Note: you can generate and download a .vtt caption file to add to PowerPoint video, if you upload your video to Youtube, correct the captioning in Youtube, and then download the .vtt file.
Use PowerPoint's built in Accessibility Checker
Articles and Scanned Documents
Don鈥檛 scan images of articles/text or other learning materials on a copier and then put the PDF in the course
Don鈥檛 scan images of articles/text or other learning materials on a copier and then put the PDF in the course. Many of these become inaccessible images of text. Find the link to the HTML version of a journal article online, through our library鈥檚 website, and put this link within your course. Be cautious about putting PDFs from publishers online because they often are not completely accessible. They may contain 鈥渟earchable text,鈥 but often the read order is incorrect, and these documents are untagged. Without the tagging, a screen reader user who is blind, won鈥檛 have the semantic elements they use to navigate quickly, like headings, descriptive links, proper list markup, etc. See: .
Take printed hard copies of learning materials to Electronic Course Reserves on the 8th floor of the Michael Schwartz Library
Take printed hard copies of learning materials to Electronic Course Reserves on the 8th floor of the Michael Schwartz Library and have it scanned on the Bookeye scanner if you can鈥檛 find an online version of a learning material that you need put within a course. This will produce an image that will convert via optical character recognition (OCR) much nicer than a book laid on a copier. See: .
Video and Multimedia
Find and use video that is already captioned
Find and use video that is already captioned. Accuracy and synchronization are important! If you have access to the video file, you can upload it to Youtube and fix the captions after Youtube has time to automatically caption it. See: . You can then download the Youtube caption file in .srt format and upload this to Tegrity. Another type of Youtube caption file format, .vtt, may be used in other applications that will accept it. See: .
Provide audio descriptions
Provide audio descriptions of what is occurring if important non-verbal information exists in the audio or video recording.
Add captions to Youtube videos owned by others
Add captions to Youtube videos owned by others. If you find an uncaptioned video on Youtube that you鈥檇 like to use in your course, create a free account and caption the video through .
Write a transcript of audio or video used in your course
Write a transcript of audio or video used in your course for people who are blind-deaf or have low bandwidth. See: .
Checking Web Accessibility
Use a web accessibility checker to check web pages
Use a free web accessibility checker to check web pages.Wave Chrome extension is one. Deque's aXe extension is another. will check the accessibility of internal pages, and those with JavaScript. Once installed in Chrome browser, you activate it by clicking the icon at the top that looks like a circle with a "W" inside of it. 
A pane will open on the left side of the browser with information about the good and the bad that it found. Visual markers will be put within the web page to designate various features relating to accessibility, e.g. missing headings, or alt text. For those who haven't worked with HTML, it's an easy interface to understand. See an explanation of .
aXe Developer Tools exist within an or . aXe will also highlight problem areas in the web page, explain what the error is that is found, and show the code involved. Once installed, it is accessed through the developer tools under the aXe tab. You simply navigate to the page you would like to check and click the Analyze button within the aXe tab. See an .
Use Power Points built in Accessibility Checker. It's under File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility.
Articles and Scanned Documents
Don鈥檛 scan images of articles/text or other learning materials on a copier and then put the PDF in the course. Many of these become inaccessible images of text. Find the link to the HTML version of a journal article online, through our library鈥檚 website, and put this link within your course. Be cautious about putting PDFs from publishers online because they often are not completely accessible. They may contain 鈥渟earchable text,鈥 but often the read order is incorrect, and these documents are untagged. Without the tagging, a screen reader user who is blind, won鈥檛 have the semantic elements they use to navigate quickly, like headings, descriptive links, proper list markup, etc. See: .
Take printed hard copies of learning materials to Electronic Course Reserves on the 8th floor of the Michael Schwartz Library and have it scanned on the Bookeye scanner if you can鈥檛 find an online version of a learning material that you need put within a course. This will produce an image that will convert via optical character recognition (OCR) much nicer than a book laid on a copier. See: .
Video and Multimedia
Find and use video that is already captioned. Accuracy and synchronization are important! If you have access to the video file, you can upload it to Youtube and fix the captions after Youtube has time to automatically caption it. See: . You can then download the Youtube caption file in .srt format and upload this to Panopto. Another type of Youtube caption file format, .vtt, may be used in other applications that will accept it. See: .
Provide audio descriptions of what is occurring if important non-verbal information exists in the audio or video recording.
Add captions to Youtube videos owned by others. If you find an uncaptioned video on Youtube that you鈥檇 like to use in your course, create a free account and caption the video through .
Write a transcript of audio or video used in your course for people who are blind-deaf or have low bandwidth. See: .
Checking Web Accessibility
Use a free web accessibility checker to check web pages.Wave Chrome extension is one. Deque's aXe extension is another. will check the accessibility of internal pages, and those with JavaScript. Once installed in Chrome browser, you activate it by clicking the icon at the top that looks like a circle with a "W" inside of it. A pane will open on the left side of the browser with information about the good and the bad that it found. Visual markers will be put within the web page to designate various features relating to accessibility, e.g. missing headings, or alt text. For those who haven't worked with HTML, it's an easy interface to understand. See an explanation of .
aXe Developer Tools exist within an or . aXe will also highlight problem areas in the web page, explain what the error is that is found, and show the code involved. Once installed, it is accessed through the developer tools under the aXe tab. You simply navigate to the page you would like to check and click the Analyze button within the aXe tab. See an .
Mailing Address
Center for eLearning
91探花
2121 Euclid Avenue, RT201
Cleveland, OH 44115
Campus Location
Center for eLearning, RT201
1860 East 22nd Street
Cleveland, OH 44115-2214
Phone: 216.687.3960
Fax: 216.875.9733
elearning@csuohio.edu