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Post #12 (of 12) in the series of posts about improving the accessibility of online courses.

In previous posts we examined many of the accessibility tips for making online course content using HTML pages, Microsoft® Word documents, and Microsoft® PowerPoint® documents. In this final installment, we’ll look at a few final suggestions for making a positive impact on the accessibility of online courses.

1. Try out Assistive Technology for yourself

A screen reader is a computer program that produces an auditory version of the text that is available on a webpage, or a computer-generated document. Commonly used screen readers are JAWS®, NVDA, Windows Narrator, and VoiceOver for Mac. You are able to try all of these programs for free, and I suggest you do so in order to get a feel for that user experience. Only JAWS requires a paid license for continued use. There is a bit of a learning curve when getting started with a screen reader, but as you stumble through your first couple of times using a reader, you’ll likely develop some empathy for students who must rely on such technology for their access to learning. You can find more about these platforms here:

JAWS from Freedom Scientific (also JAWS keyboard shortcuts by Deque University)

NV Access, makers of NVDA (Also User Guide and WebAIM tutorial)

Narrator – complete guide to Windows Narrator

VoiceOver for MacOS – user guide for VoiceOver

2. Know when to use PDF as your document file type

PDF can be a good choice for document file type, if:

• The document appearance is critical and must look exactly the same across various different computing platforms.
• The document needs to be encrypted, will include things such as a watermark or a digital signature.
• You want to make it more difficult for the viewer to edit the document.

Keep in mind however, that for delivering content on a web page, such as in an online course, a properly made HTML page will be the most accessible file format.

3. Learn about making PDF documents accessible to students using Assistive Technology

If you’ve decided that an accessible PDF is the way you need to go, then you need to know how to properly create the document.

There are two ways to create an accessible PDF, either a) converting a source file, like a PowerPoint®or a Word document to a PDF or b) scanning a hard copy of a document to PDF.

To learn more about accessible PDFdocuments, visit the Web Accessibility MOOC for Online Educators public content site.

4. Go another step beyond captioning, use described videos

Captioned videos are a good first step toward accessibility of video content for online courses, however, the captions tend to capture the words spoken in the video, which can sometimes be confusing without understanding the context within which they are being spoken.

Described video, descriptive video, and audio description are three terms that all mean the same thing, a voiceover description of the primary visual elements in a video. Some examples of things that could be described on a video include setting the scene, costumes, actions, expressions, scene changes, and the like. These descriptions would be beneficial to viewers with low or no vision, as long as they can hear the audio descriptions.

There are many factors to consider when making described videos, and the full extent of knowledge extends beyond this series of accessibility tips for online courses. However, one free and simple service to consider is the website YouDescribe.org, where you can add audio descriptions to YouTube™videos. Embedded below is an example of a described video from that site.

5. Test your webpages using only your keyboard

Open one of your course content pages in a new window. Using only your keyboard (hands off the mouse!), can you access all the features and operate all the buttons or links using keys on the keyboard?

If it is a simple webpage with text and images, I’ll guess that your answer is yes. However, if you have embedded videos, an audio player, or action buttons there’s a chance that you’ll find the keyboard-only access is not sufficient. If that is the case, you may need to change that content, or get some technical help to make the content more accessible.

Keyboard users typically use the Tab key to navigate through the various components of a webpage. The other most commonly used keys are Enter, Spacebar, and the Arrow keys.

You can learn more about Keyboard Accessibility at WebAIM.

6. Be familiar with the applicable laws, and some of the lawsuits against educational institutions

There is a great deal of information available on the Internet about the accessibility laws, and resulting lawsuits that have impacted educational institutions. It is in the interests of all educators to become familiar with the legal expectations and ramifications related to accessible educational offerings.

The University of Washington offers an excellent summary of the Laws, Policies, and Standards related to accessible technology in education; including a sampling of Resolution Agreements and Lawsuits from recent legal actions and a list of Legal Cases by Issue.

I also recommend the page titled Higher Ed Accessibility Lawsuits, Complaints, and Settlements from my friends at University of Minnesota Duluth.

This brings to a close the twelve-part series of posts about making online courses more accessible to all students.

Microsoft and PowerPoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

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Blog Post #10 in Series of Accessibility Tips for Online Teaching. Only two more coming!

Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation graphics program and similar programs are frequently used for creating course content in all levels of education. If those PowerPoint® slide decks are placed online as part of an online course, it is important for those decks to be accessible to student using assistive technology.

Using PowerPoint Slides in Online Courses

First, an opinion regarding slide shows as course content. From an accessibility perspective, the same content provided in an HTML page or a series of pages would usually be more accessible than a slide deck. Whenever possible, provide online course content as a web page. If that is not possible, then providing a slide deck that is created in an accessible manner is one alternative to consider.

There is a complicating factor when designing a slide deck for students using a screen reader. There are different views that the student can utilize when screen reading through a PowerPoint file. The Normal View in PowerPoint presentation manager is most often used by sighted users, and can be used with a screen reader. However, many unsighted users will switch to the Outline View which provides a text-only reading of the slide contents. It is a good practice to design your content in Outline View to ensure that all important information is available to students using a screen reader with this view. When the Outline contains all necessary information, you can switch to Normal View to add additional elements for sighted users.

Accessibility Tips and Techniques When Using PowerPoint

In this post, we’ll consider the following items:

• Proper use of layout templates
• Proper use of slide titles
• Reading order of multiple elements in a slide
• Similarities to accessibility in Microsoft® Word®
• Using the built-in Accessibility Checker

Proper use of layout templates
 

Since 2000, PowerPoint presentation graphics program has included a selection of highly-accessible slide layouts. By utilizing these layout options, you will have an easier time making your slide content accessible to students using assistive technology such as screen reader platforms. Every time that you add an additional element to a slide that isn’t contained in one of the built-in placeholders, you run the risk of that piece of content being inaccessible.

When adding a new slide, choose the slide layout that contains the type of content elements that will best fit your needs. You can also change the current layout of any existing slide by selecting your choice from the Home > Layout menu.

You can resize and move the slide elements without negatively impacting the accessibility of the slide. However, let’s look at an example of what happens when you add new elements to a slide.

Let’s assume that you choose a new slide from the graphic shown above, and that you choose the “Title Only” layout. You enter a title for the slide. You then select Insert > Pictures and you add a photograph to the slide. You then select Insert > Text Box and write a caption for the photograph. You size and position both the photo and the caption so it looks good to the sighted student. However, to the unsighted student using a screen reader in Outline View, they will hear the slide title, and that’s all. Neither the added text box nor the inserted photo will appear in the Outline View of the slide.

Proper use of Slide Titles

Until you design a slide deck with accessibility in mind, you probably haven’t given much thought to your slide titles, at least not much thought to their importance to a student using a screen reader.

Each slide should have a descriptive title that helps organize the content for the unsighted user. Including a slide that does not have a title leaves a blank space in the Outline View, which is confusing to someone using a screen reader. Even if you don’t want to have the slide title appear on the slide for sighted viewers, you should still populate the title placeholder, and then hide the title behind another object, or by moving it off-screen (it’s still part of the slide, just not in the viewing area), or by using the Hide feature found in Home > Arrange > Selection Pane.

The titles should also be unique. Repeating the same title text would be similar to having two chapters in a book with the same title. Having unique titles enables people to navigate quickly, especially when attempting to return to an earlier slide for review.

The example above indicates what it would be like for an unsighted student to use a screen reader while tabbing through the titles of slides. Slide 2 has no title at all, and slides 4 and 5 have the same title.

Reading order of multiple elements in a slide

This one is often overlooked by people creating PowerPoint slides, unless they have an eye on accessibility. Previously we looked at the importance of using the built-in slide layouts with accessible placeholders for titles, text, pictures, etc. Now let’s look at what difference it makes when those multiple slide elements are being read to a student by a screen reader. In the accompanying graphic, there are five elements on the slide: 1) title, 2) left text placeholder, 3) left content, 4) right text placeholder, 5) right content.

Most of the time, you would want a screen reading program to read those five elements in the order listed above. The newer versions of PowerPoint presentation graphics program are better at determining a logical reading order for the elements on a slide, but older versions are trickier. The graphic below shows the order that the elements would be read by a screen reader. Notice that the Home > Arrange> Selection Panel will list the slide elements from the bottom up. In this example, the elements would be read to the student in the proper order.

However, in older versions of PowerPoint, the elements would be read in the order in which you entered them into the boxes. For example, the reading order could be as shown below by the black boxes:

In this case, you would need to drag and drop the elements in the Selection pane to put them in the proper reading order, again with the first item at the bottom of the list and the last item at the top. This is counter-intuitive to many people.

Similarities to accessibility in Microsoft Word

In the previous post, we looked at various accessibility features in Microsoft Word. There are many similarities between Word and PowerPoint programs when it comes to accessibility for students using assistive technology. Please refer back to the previous post for information about the following items:

• Where to add Alt Text
• Formatting of tables

Using the Built-in Accessibility Checker

Starting with PowerPoint 2010 presentation graphics program, there is a built-in tool that checks your document for accessibility problems. The Accessibility Checker makes it much easier to identify and repair accessibility issues. To use the tool, select File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility.

An example report is shown on the right. Click on any of the reported items to get help with improving the accessibility of the various slides.

Categories of items found by Accessibility Checker

Errors: Content that makes the document impossible or very difficult to read and understand for people using assistive technology. Common errors in PowerPoint documents include:

• Slides without titles
• Missing alt text for non-text objects
• Proper table header formatting

Warnings: Content that will likely (but not always) make the document difficult to understand for people using assistive technology. Common warnings include:

• Table structure (split or merged cells, nested tables, or completely blank rows or columns)
• Hyperlink text that is not meaningful or descriptive

Tips: Content that should be understood with assistive technology, but could be better organized to improve the experience. Common tips include:

• If there is a video, it will alert you to check for closed captions
• Slide titles should be unique (not repeated)
• The reading order of various slide components is in logical order

One more thing. If you’re designing slides for accessibility, you’ll need to make the file available to students so that they can use the file with their screen reading platform. If you put the slides online, there is a good chance that many of the accessibility features will be lost. Make the file available for download for those who need to use a screen reader.

In the next post, we’ll conclude this series with six more tips to improve the accessibility of your online course content.

Much of the content in this series of posts comes from WAMOE, the Web Accessibility MOOC for Online Educators; co-created by Karen Sorensen of Portland Community College and Barry Dahl of D2L.

Microsoft and PowerPoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

Filed under: accessibility | Leave a comment »

Ninth post in Accessibility series. Improving the accessibility of Online Course Content pages. #A11Y

Many educators use one or more programs contained in Microsoft® Office when creating course content or other instructional materials for online courses. In this post we’ll focus on a few tips and techniques for making accessible content using Microsoft® Word, although similar concepts would apply to other word processing programs.

Using Word Documents in Online Courses

First, an opinion regarding word processing documents. From an accessibility perspective, the same content provided in an HTML page would usually be more accessible than a word processing document. If at all possible, provide online course content as a web page. If that is not possible, then providing a Word document that is created in an accessible manner is one alternative to consider.

Accessibility Tips and Techniques When Using Word

In this post, we’ll consider the following items:

• Proper use of Word Headings
• Where to add Alt Text
• Formatting of tables
• Using the built-in Accessibility Checker

Proper Use of Word Headings

Proper uses of the heading structure help people with low or no vision to understand how a document is organized. Screen reader users can jump from one heading to the next, which makes page navigation more efficient than if there are no headings.  The concept of using proper headings in a Word document is the same as previously covered when creating HTML pages.

You should always use the built-in Styles to identify Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. in a Word document. Simply changing the font size or making it bold does not make it a heading.

The default style in Word uses light blue heading colors. These headings do not have the necessary color contrast for accessibility. Make sure to change those headings to a darker color. You can also edit the default template so that all new documents also have the preferred darker headings.

Where to add Alt Text in Word

If you’ve learned how to add Alt Text to an image in an HTML page, you need to follow a slightly different procedure when adding Alt Text to a Word document. Alt Text should be added to the Description field in the Format Picture box, and the Title field should be left blank. Below is an example of a photo in a Word document on the left and the Format Picture box on the right.

Additionally, when using Word, you should also add Alt Text to the following:

• Tables
• Charts
• WordArt
• Shapes
• SmartArt graphics

Here is an example using SmartArt. This is the feedback cycle for learning. Start at the top with Understanding & Meaning, and proceed clockwise. As with the photo above, Alt Text goes in the Description field.

Formatting of Tables

There are significant issues for screen reader users when trying to learn from a data table in Word. You are able to add column headers in Word, but it does not support the concept of row headers, which can be problematic for screen reader users.

Steps to follow when designating the header row depend somewhat on the version of Word that you are utilizing. The screenshot below is taken from Word 2016.

1. Put your cursor in the top row of your data table.
2. The Table Tools tab will display.
3. Click on the Design tab under the Table tab.
4. In the Table Style Options group, select the Header Row check box.

Next, change to the Table Layout tab, as shown below, and click the button “Repeat as Header Rows,” which provides structure for navigating the table if it appears on multiple pages.

Perform one final test on your table before sending it out into the wild. Screen reading software will read tables from left to right, top to bottom, one cell at a time with no repeats. The order in which the cells will be read can be thrown off if your table contains split cells or merged cells.

Always test the reading order of Word tables by placing your cursor in the first cell of the table, then continuously pressing the Tab key to navigate through the table. Pay attention to the order in which the cursor moves through the cells, as this will be the reading order that a screen reader would follow.

Using the Built-in Accessibility Checker

Starting with Word 2010, there is a built-in tool that checks your document for accessibility problems. The Accessibility Checker makes it much easier to identify and repair accessibility issues. To use the tool, select File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility.

Categories of items found by Accessibility Checker

Errors: Content that makes the document impossible or very difficult to read and understand for people using assistive technology. Common errors in Word documents include:

• No headings applied and no Table of Contents used
• Missing Alt Text for non-text objects
• Proper table header formatting

Warnings: Content that will likely (but not always) make the document difficult to understand for people using assistive technology. Common warnings include:

• Table structure (split or merged cells, nested tables, or completely blank rows or columns)
• Hyperlink text that is not meaningful or descriptive
• Repeated blank characters

Tips: Content that should be understood with assistive technology, but could be better organized to improve the experience. Common tips include:

• If there is a video, it will alert you to check for closed captions
• If an image has a watermark, it might be misunderstood
• Headings follow in a logical order, no levels are skipped

In the next post, we’ll consider the accessibility features of creating content in Microsoft PowerPoint®.

Much of the content in this series of posts comes from WAMOE, the Web Accessibility MOOC for Online Educators; co-created by Karen Sorensen of Portland Community College and Barry Dahl of D2L.

Microsoft and PowerPoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

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Post #8 in Accessibility series. Improving the accessibility of Online Course Content pages. #A11Y

As a D2L Brightspace user, I’ll concentrate on some of the features built into the Brightspace platform that can be used to enhance the accessibility of your online courses. In this post, we’ll look at three of those features.

Color Contrast Checker

There is a built-in color checker in the HTML editor used in the Brightspace platform. Select the text that you would like to check, and then click on the Text Font Color icon in the editor.

As you click on different font colors, the Contrast Ratio numbers will change to indicate the amount of contrast between the font color (foreground color) and the background color. In addition to calculating the contrast ratio numbers, the color checker will also indicate whether the color choices conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

There are three possible outcomes with regard as to whether the WCAG standards are met:

• Green check mark, indicating that AA WCAG standards are met with a minimum ratio of 4.5:1.
• Caution symbol, indicating that it is close to, but below the 4.5:1 minimum ratio.
• Red circle with white X, indicating poor contrast.

The graphic at the right indicates an acceptable contrast level of 15.4:1, which is achieved with black text on a light gray background. There are two additional graphics at the bottom of this post indicating the other two possible outcomes for meeting WCAG guidelines. Click any graphic to enlarge.

Table Formatting

HTML tables were designed for tabular data, but they have been and still are occasionally used for structure and layout of web pages. These days CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) has replaced the need for table layouts, but you will still occasionally run across them or even need to use one now and again. Tables aren’t terrible in terms of accessibility as long as they maintain a proper reading order.¹

Create Data Tables with Column Headers

Designating column and/or row headers in a table is essential to screen reader users understanding how information is laid out. Screen readers usually have a keyboard command that will inform the user what the column and/or row header is for the data cell their cursor is in, making it easier to navigate and understand the tabular data. Even still, tabular data can be daunting to a screen reader user. So it is best to keep tables small if possible. Consider breaking large tables into smaller ones. But always include column and/or row headers on all tables except layout tables.¹

Karen Sorensen and the team at Portland Community College created this video to explain how to add table headers in the Brightspace platform.

Use Accessible Templates for the Content Pages You Create

D2L has developed and shared HTML template packages in an effort to make it easier for course instructors to create accessible, professional looking HTML content files. The templates use a cascading style sheet (CSS) to format the content in HTML files. The accessibility features are built into the CSS file, allowing the content developer to concentrate on adding text, images, and other course resources without concern for proper formatting, which the template code takes care of for you.

Brightspace itself is built with responsive design in mind. This is what allows the platform to work equally well on computer monitors, mid-size screens such as iPads and small screen such as phones. However, IF the content that you put into Brightspace is NOT responsive, then you’ve undone all the good work that was done for you. These templates are also built to be responsive, so by using the templates you are ensuring a better experience for the student or other viewer of your online course materials.

You can download a treasure trove of free templates at the Brightspace Community.  These templates are freely offered and can be used as you see fit. They come in a Zip file that needs to be:

• downloaded to your computer, then
• uploaded into the Manage Files section of the Brightspace Learning Environment, then
• unzipped into a files folder, and then
• enabled for use throughout the course in Content Settings
• NOTE: full instructions for doing this are provided by D2L at the link above.

View a 2020 Fusion Presentation recording

In the D2L Community you’ll find a YouTube video of a good presentation about using the templates:

Creating Customizable and Inspirational Learning Materials Using HTML Templates

This presentation includes insights from a D2L Courseware Developer and two customers; one from Higher Ed and one from K-12.

Here are a couple screenshots from my own Brightspace course shell showing two of the template files included in version 3.0.

In the next post, we’ll consider some accessibility tips and tricks for Word documents, including specific ideas for those who use Word docs as content pages in Brightspace.

Much of the content in this series of posts comes from WAMOE, the Web Accessibility MOOC for Online Educators; co-created by Karen Sorensen of Portland Community College and Barry Dahl of D2L.

¹ Written by Karen Sorensen for WAMOE module 4-1.

Below: Additional screenshots of D2L Color Checker 

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

Filed under: accessibility | Leave a comment »

Improving the accessibility of online course content in post #7 of the series. #A11Y

In the first half of this series of blog posts, we looked at online course accessibility concerns for simple and complex images, video captions, and a general introduction about web course accessibility and why this is an important topic. In this post I’ll focus on making HTML content pages more accessible to students with disabilities, particularly for those students using assistive technology such as a screen reader.

There’s a lot to cover regarding HTML pages, so we’ll break it into parts. This time we’ll look at four simple improvements that you can make right away to your existing online courses.

One: Check your Use of Page Headings in Course Content

Properly formatted page headings are very important to structure and readability of your course content. Formatting your text as big and bold does not result in proper headings. You need to use the HTML headings coding for proper formatting, which is usually available with a simple click of the mouse. Hierarchy of the headings is also crucial. They need to be in the correct order to make sense to students using a screen reader. Headings are an important way of navigating through the content with a screen reader – think about skimming and skipping through the content. Headings also chunk out your content which also makes it easier for sighted students to read.

Heading 1 is like the title of a book and there is just one Heading 1 per page. Heading 2s are like chapter titles. Heading 3s are sub-sections of those chapters, and so on. The heading hierarchy also resembles an outline’s hierarchy if that metaphor works better for you. See the graphic above for a visual display of a possible heading order.

Note: While descending in heading levels, DO NOT skip a level.

Two: Know When to Use Ordered and Unordered Lists

Oftentimes a list is not a list. What? If you haven’t properly formatted a list of items, it might look like a list to the sighted student, but it won’t be identified as a list to the unsighted student.

The formatting elements that are part of the html code, such as lists, headings, and links, are read aloud to screen reader users, so the content is understood in context. They will be told that the next piece of content is a list, and they will also be told whether the list is ordered or unordered.

Unordered lists should be used when there is no order of sequence or importance. Ordered lists suggest a progression or sequence. As with headings, lists should be used correctly and for the right purposes. Unordered and ordered lists should always contain list items. Lists should not be used for decorative purposes such as indenting solely for layout purposes.

My favorite teams include: (this is an unordered list)

• Denver Broncos
• Minnesota Twins
• Minnesota Vikings
• San Diego Padres

My top four favorite teams are: (this is an ordered list)

1. San Diego Padres
2. Denver Broncos
3. Minnesota Vikings
4. Minnesota Twins

Three: Create Good Links to Additional Content

General guidelines for links:

• Avoid using “click here” or similar non-descriptive link text. Everyone knows you have to click on or otherwise activate a link. Instead, use descriptive link text that tells the user the destination of the link. Where will they be taken if they activate the link?
• If multiple links on a single page include the same link text, all those links should point to the same destination.
• Screen readers say “link” before reading the link. For example: a text link of “link to discussions” would be read as “Link link to discussions.”
• Users of screen readers will often tab from link to link, which is a form of content skimming. Do your links make sense when not in the context of the surrounding content?
• Using the link URL as the link text is generally not a good idea from an a11y viewpoint. A particularly nasty URL (numbers, underscores, dashes, etc.) can be very confusing when listening to a screen reader. It’s also not helpful to a sighted person skimming the page
• Which of these links do you prefer? Don’t be confused. They go to the same place.
  • Check out this W3 Schools tutorial for more info about text linking,
  • Visit https://www.w3schools.com/accessibility/accessibility_link_text.php to learn more about text linking.

Four: Avoid Flashing or Blinking Content

Any flashing/blinking content (especially content in red) can cause seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy as well as other photosensitive seizure disorders, so it should be limited and used only when necessary. Web pages that do contain flashing content, should limit the flashing to no more than three flashes per second and not use fully saturated reds in the content. If you do have content that flashes/blinks more than three times per second, freeze the blinking content momentarily so it falls below the three times per second limit. If you have a web video with a scene involving very bright lightning flashes (or other scenes with flashes), edit the video so the lightning doesn’t flash more than three times in any one second period.²

In the next post, we’ll consider some additional HTML page accessibility elements, including those that are specifically related to making content pages in the Brightspace platform.

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

Filed under: accessibility | Leave a comment »

This is post #5 in a series of twelve posts intended to help you improve the accessibility of your online courses.

The use of videos in online education has been steadily growing for the past two decades. As soon as video creation, editing, and sharing became easier and available to all; the usage rates of videos in online courses increased exponentially. To learn more about the use of video in education, I recommend this National Library of Medicine article: Effective Educational Videos: Principles and Guidelines for Maximizing Student Learning from Video Content.

From step-by-step screencasts, to video interviews, to artistic or historical pieces, and even the talking head lectures; videos can be an effective way of developing skills or expanding students’ knowledge.

I’m hoping that you’ll agree that there’s a problem with the captions in the image above. Some of you might think the captions are very accurate. Hard to say for sure.

A Video is More Than Just a Video

If you provide an educational video to your students, there’s a good chance that one or more of them will not be able to see or hear the content of the video and audio. This is an accessibility problem that must be addressed. Video captions and audio transcripts play an important role in providing access to students with disabilities. In this post I’ll concentrate on finding educational videos with good captions that you can use in your online courses.

Possibly your organization has purchased access to one or more of the many video libraries that might have relevant content for the subject you teach. If being sold to an academic audience, these publishing companies *almost always* have captions applied to the videos. If they don’t then your org shouldn’t be paying for them in the first place.

Much more common is for faculty and course designers to look for videos in the publicly available sites such as YouTube and their competitors. If you find a video on one of those sites that you’d like to include in your course, there are two main questions that you need to answer:

1. Do you the right to use the video, based on local copyright laws and/or the video license?
2. Is the video properly captioned?

A good strategy to proactively search for videos with these qualities, rather than trying to first find a good video and then see if it has the qualities listed above.

Finding Videos That are Free to Use

There are several different approaches you might take to find videos that are approved for use (or not restricted from such use) in your online courses. Some of the most commonly used techniques for finding these videos include:

• Ask a Librarian
  • Librarians are typically highly skilled at finding learning resources that can be legally used in education.  There is also a great chance that the library subscribes to one or more video libraries specifically for this purpose.
• Search the entire web
  • Much has changed in the past year or two regarding searching for free-to-use videos. The current version of the Creative Commons search tool no longer searches for videos at all. Google used to have a better video search option than it does today, having removed the licensing filter from the video search tool.
  • I haven’t found an aggregating search tool ( one that searches multiple sites) for Creative Commons or Public Domain videos. The old Creative Commons search is still available, but no longer maintained.
• Search for reusable videos on the individual video services
  • YouTube: when searching the YouTube site, you can turn on the filter that searches for Creative Commons licensed videos. When creators upload their videos to YouTube there are only two licensing options: 1) Standard YouTube license, and 2) Creative Commons – Attribution.
    • Therefore, any video on this site that has a Creative Commons license can be reused with attribution to the video owner.
    • With the standard YouTube license, the video owner has retained all rights to the video, except for the rights granted to YouTube by the video owner. In other words, they are not free to use by others without permission (even though many people do so).
  • Vimeo: probably the second-most active video site on the web, Vimeo also has filters that let you search for videos that are free-to-use.
    • For example, if I search for Volcano, I get 18.4K results. If I turn on the CC-BY filter (Creative Commons Attribution license, free to sue if giving credit to the video creator) I then get 442 videos to choose from.
    • One down side to Vimeo is that there is NOT a filter to help you look for videos that have edited (usually improved) captions. Also, Vimeo does not have automatic captioning like YouTube, so you may have a harder time finding videos you can use that also have good captions.

Searching with the YouTube Filters

When you search in YouTube, the default is to return all videos with both types of licensing. This is where the Filters come into play. Most relevant to our purposes (so far) is the filter for Creative Commons licensing, which is a signal that we can use the video.

In the image above we see the search results looking for Creative commons videos on the topic of volcanoes. This indicates that the video owner has given permission for the video to be used as long as attribution is given to the owner – a video credit if you will. YouTube recently stopped identifying the number of search results found. This is unfortunate since it gives a good indication of how many videos for your search topic are NOT licensed as Creative Commons.

The most common licenses that allow reuse without asking for permission are a) Public Domain and b) the various Creative Commons licenses. At the present time there is not a great search option for finding videos in the Public Domain, except for some of the other video platforms that include that option. Although possibly relevant for educational use, the concept of using anything based on the defense of Fair Use is beyond the scope of this post, so I’m going to hope that you can find content that is already licensed to allow for your use in an online course.

However, finding content that you can use is only part of the battle. Now you need to ensure that your found content has the necessary features for accessibility.

What are Video Captions?

Captions are an on-screen text version of audio dialogue and other sounds in a video. More than just the spoken words, captions should also identify who is speaking when it’s not otherwise evident, and provide a sense of other sounds such as street noises, background chatter, laughter, music, or other relevant sound effects. Captions and can be added to a recorded video, or provided to live videos in real time. For the captions to make sense within the context of the video, they should be synchronized with the visual content of the video.

The original purpose of captioning was to assist hearing impaired people, but they can also be useful in many different situations. For example, captions can be read when the audio can’t be heard for a variety of reasons, such as too much noise in the surrounding area, or due to the need to keep quiet (no audio playing) such as in a hospital or in a library when headphones aren’t available. Captions can also help when learning a second language.

Captions can be either closed or open. Closed captions can be turned on or off, whereas open captions are always visible on screen.

Are Subtitles and Captions Interchangeable Terms?

If you’ve ever watched a foreign-language film, then odds are good that you’ve used subtitles. The main purpose of subtitles is to translate the video dialogue into one or more other languages so that the video can reach wider audiences. Subtitles typically assume the viewer can hear the audio and therefore do not contain the background sounds or notifications for speaker changes.

The terminology can be a bit confusing, especially as you travel around the world. In North America, the terms captions and subtitles are not typically used interchangeably. In most of the other parts of the world, they are. In North America, it’s probably best to think of subtitles as language translators and captions for increasing access.

Searching for Videos with Good Captions

Once again, your Librarian can be an invaluable asset in finding captioned videos. If, however, you want to go it alone, here are a few tips.  

For the past ten years or so, all videos uploaded to YouTube are automatically captioned via voice recognition software as long as there are spoken words in the video. Therefore, all YouTube videos with spoken words have captions, unless the video owner deleted the captions. However, the voice-to-text captions are often very inaccurate; sometimes in an embarrassing manner. 

The trick is to use the available search filters when looking for a YouTube video. Turn on the “Subtitles/CC” filter and the only videos that will be listed are those with captions that are not the automatically generated captions. I like to say that the search results are those videos where the captions have been “touched,” which is the term I use to indicate that either:

• The automatic captions have been edited, or
• A captions file has been uploaded by the content owner to replace the auto-caps

Typically, but not always, either of the two actions above should result in captions that are much more accurate than the automatic captions. However, it is always a good practice to review the video with the captions turned on to ensure that they are helpful and not inaccurate. The short video below shows how to use these filters in YouTube.

Looking for videos without words?

No words, no captions. Typically our concern with video captions is for the student with no or low hearing. However, if the video doesn’t contain any words, then those students are not missing anything. However again, we still can’t forget about the student with no or low vision.

Maybe you find a great video that shows exactly what you want students to learn. However, it is more of a designer video and includes no words at all. How will the unsighted student learn what you want them to from this video? You will need to supply some sort of narrative about what is happening in the video.

Here are a couple sites where you might be able to find beautiful videos that are free-to-use that are either silent or with background music only.

• Pixabay: I frequently use Pixabay for finding free-to-use photos, illustrations, and other still images. However, they also have free videos on their site. This is more of a collection of stock footage videos, so you won’t always find something useful for education purposes, but you might.
  • Maybe you just want a beautiful video to spark a conversation in the discussion forum, or something similar. If you’re teaching about anything that’s out in nature, there’s a good chance you’ll find some videos here. Most of the videos are under one minute in length.
• Pexels: similar to Pixabay, you’ll find all sort of images at Pexels, as well as free-to-use videos.

There’s lots of video out there, here are a few more

Chance are good that I haven’t mentioned your own favorite site for educational videos. Here’s a short list of possible sites. NOTE: I cannot and do not vouch for the captioning that happens or doesn’t happen on these sites. It’s sort of the Wild Wild West, so be careful out there.

• The Big Think
• Brightstorm
• Cosmo Learning
• Khan Academy
• PBS (includes NOVA) Videos
• TeacherTube
• National Geographic Kids
• Funbrain
• Prelinger Archives
• Academic Earth
• Edutopia
• Watch Know Learn
• Edutube

Lastly, here is a graphic that summarizes the search filter possibilities in You Tube.

Still want more about captions? Here you go.

• W3C: Video Captions
• W3C: Multimedia Accessibility FAQ
• WebAIM: Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions
• University of Washington Accessible Technology – Captions
• Digital dot gov: 508 Accessible Videos—Why (and How) to Make Them
• JISC: Video captioning and accessibility regulations
• Amara Blog: 13 Free Tools & Subtitle Software to Make Your Video Captioning Process Easier!
• 3PLAYMEDIA: Accessibility Laws
• 3PLAYMEDIA: National Research Study: Student Uses and Perceptions of Closed Captions & Transcripts
• 3PLAYMEDIA: The Future of Video Captioning According to Google

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

Filed under: accessibility | Leave a comment »

This is post #4 in a series of twelve posts intended to help you improve the accessibility of your online courses.

In the previous post I tried to explain the basics about Alt Text for images used in online courses. However, some online course content may be far more complicated to describe, and thus require the instructor to provide much more alternative information than can be handled through normal Alt Text methods.

Complex Image Types

The following items represent the most common types of complex images used in online learning:

• Numerical charts, graphs, and scatter plots
• Flow charts
• Organizational charts
• Diagrams and illustrations
• Infographics or similar text-heavy graphics such as word clouds
• Maps
• Cartoons and comics
• Photos with a great deal of visual information that is important to the learning process

Starting with the Obvious

The “table” shown below is not a table at all. It’s an image of a table. A screen capture or whatever you want to call it. It’s a .jpg, not readable by assistive technology.

You would not be able to include much information at all in the Alt Text attribute to describe this information. It is recommended that you not write a book (or even a paragraph) in the Alt Text attribute. One or two sentences probably is not going to cut it for a complicated graphic like this.

So, the obvious point here is to NOT take an otherwise difficult-to-read piece of learning content and make it even more difficult by turning it into a flat image that cannot be read by a screen reader.

However, imagine that the table above is not an image, but a properly constructed data table with headers and formatting that allows a screen reader user to tab through the information contained therein. Even then it would be a difficult task to understand all the info contained within.

More Examples to Consider

How about this infographic (shortened for space but still illustrative)? The text in this infographic is not machine readable, and many infographics have an enormous amount of text.

Or how about this Org Chart?

How about this column chart of student survey data?

Long Descriptions for Complex Images

In each example above, how you would go about describing this information to a student who cannot see the images? You can use some of the strategies described previously to write longer descriptions:

• Long Descriptions, using the HTML <img> longdesc Attribute, can be provided on a separate webpage and be as long as you choose
• Describing the image in the surrounding paragraph text also allows you to say as much as you like about the image
• Image captions can be longer than Alt Text, but not super long

Or you can convert the image information into a more accessible format, such as adding a data table adjacent to the column chart or a turning a diagram into a tactile graphic.

Data Tables as Alternative Text for Charts

A properly formed data table is the best way to provide access to the data contained in an image of a chart, such as the column chart above. In a later post we’ll look at how to make an accessible data table.

The data in the table is real text, so it’s very accessible and provides an excellent alternate description for the chart image. Depending on the publishing platform, a data table might also offer the ability to sort and manipulate the data, so presenting the data in this way would definitely benefit all students.

Here is the data table for the column chart above

Before you decide on a Data Table

Consider the context and the learning goal. Is a data table needed? In other words, are the specific data figures and details an important part of the learning? Consider the following image that might be used in a tax class for an Accounting major:

How important are the details above. Is the exact amount of total tax collected in 2012 an important number? Almost certainly not (so says the former accounting instructor). So what is important? Of course it depends on the intent of the instructor, but possibly:

• how much the total tax collected has grown over the 9 years
  • and yet business income tax collections are essentially flat over the same span
• How income taxes on individuals in 2018 are approximately 8 times larger than the taxes collected on business income
  • or maybe how the difference in 2009 was 5 times and then it grew to 8 times by 2018
• How “Other” taxes are 5 times larger than business income taxes – and what are those other taxes?

In other words, often times the gist of the information is really what you want the students to know. If your instruction is based around knowing the gist of the information in the chart, then you can provide a summary of the important things to know. However, if the goal is for students to be able to summarize the data in plain language – then they will need to be able to analyze the details in order to come up with their own summary or gist – thus the need for a data table.

Making that Infographic Accessible

You can find the infographic shown earlier in this post at the Big Hack website. What you’ll find there are two things I want to highlight.

1. The text version of the information is provided directly below the infographic. That is their alternative text for the image, and they even included links to the sources of the information. This is very good.
2. They also provide embed code “If you would like to share this infographic on your website.” This is where the accessibility typically falls apart.
   • This next section is important: “Please include a copy of the plain text version alongside the image for anyone who cannot access the information. Alternatively, you can signpost to this page saying there is a plain text version available.”
   • If you don’t do either of these things (and many people don’t), then you’ve just divorced the inaccessible infographic from the accessible alternative text. Don’t do that!

Before Wordle We Had Wordle

Here we have the lovely (jk) word cloud. Let’s assume that you teach some sort of language class and the exercise at hand is to look at how words from one language seep into usage in another language. Such as the words in the image above that are Spanish words commonly used by English-speakers. In other words, let’s assume that there is some educational value in the words in this cloud. That very often is not the case with word clouds.

This graphic was made years ago at Wordle dot net, which appears now to be in the deadpool, likely thanks to the NYT Wordle site. The original Wordle word cloud generator appears to be alive in an alternate site called EdWordle.

Word clouds are very strange from a web accessibility perspective. To make the word cloud, you enter words in plain text (usually copy and paste or provide a URL) and have the generator make a flat image that contains the same words in text that is not machine readable. Then you need to provide Alt Text so that the words in the image are available to assistive technology. To do that, you need to provide the original plain text words. That’s a strange workflow.

If your word cloud has no significant educational value, then you can safely mark it as a decorative image. If you have a word cloud that you really want to use in your course content or elsewhere, go ahead and do so, But, and this is a big but, you must provide all the important words and possibly the reasons that make those words important in plain text on the same page or as a Long Description page.

Last Example – An Attempt at Humor?

Here’s a poster I put together many moons ago.

I don’t think that the regular Alt Text attribute (about 125 characters) will work for this image. Assuming that you don’t decide to mark it as decorative, how would you provide Alt Text for this image?

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

Filed under: accessibility | Leave a comment »

This is post #3 in a series of twelve posts intended to help you improve the accessibility of your online courses.

What are Alternate Text Descriptions?

For a sighted person, images related to the learning content can be very informative and valuable. A picture’s worth a thousand words and all that stuff. So let’s assume that you have included several images in your online course; such as images in content pages, in discussion posts, possibly in a quiz question, and so on. Let’s also assume that one or more of your students has a visual impairment and uses a screen reader (assistive technology) while accessing your course.

Visual impairments make it difficult or even impossible for the student to see the image and comprehend the information you are trying to convey with that image. That’s where Alt Text come into play. For this series of blog posts, I will refer to Alt Text as shorthand for Alternate Text, also often called Alternative Text.

Alt Text is the text-only information that is associated with an image for the purpose of providing information that is equivalent to the image itself.

Informative Images or Decorative Images?

Informative Image Example

Many images used in online courses are informational in nature; which means that the image conveys information that is part of the learning activity in which it is used. For example, in an Entomology course on Bees and Beekeeping, this image of a honeybee pollinating a sunflower is most likely an important image for the learning process, or at least it could be. Students who can see the image won’t necessarily know what is educational about it, but they might. In other words, the educational purpose might be obvious to someone who can view the image, but it definitely won’t be obvious to someone who can’t view the image. This is where Alt Text comes in. More on that in a minute.

Decorative Image Example

A decorative image in an online course is one that does not convey important educational content. They are often used for layout purposes, humor, or just what could be called eye-candy. For example, assume that you want to have a little fun with your students so you post a News item stating that today is National Hoagie Day, and post a photo as well (maybe to spark a debate as to whether it should be called a hoagie, a sub, a hero, or a grinder). A student who is unable to view the image is at no educational disadvantage by missing this image. There is no need to explain the image to the student either. Your text announcing that it is Hoagie Day is sufficient for them to see your humorous side.

Alt Text for Informative Images

For a student who cannot view the image, the informational content must be explained in real text in some way that is accessible to the student using assistive technology, typically screen reading software. That readable text can be in the form of:

• An alt text description that is part of the HTML code, but is not viewable on the screen.
• A descriptive caption for the image that can be read by sighted people and read by screen readers.
• A description of the educational content conveyed by the image in the surrounding paragraph text.

For the honeybee image shown above, we would need to know the context in order to determine what should be included in the alt text or caption or surrounding paragraph. Possibly the point has to do with the fact that sunflowers are self-pollenating, which might beg the question of whether the honeybee is adding any value by visiting the flower. Let’s make that assumption for this example. Here is one possibility for the alt text:

Even though sunflowers are self-pollenating, research shows honeybee activity can improve crop yields.

Is that the best Alt Text for this image? We don’t know, that’s a trick question. The answer of what is the best alt text is contingent on the point of the learning conveyed by the image. That’s where your professional judgment comes in.

However, there is information in the Alt Text above that is not obvious in the photo. The info about bees improving crop yields is a piece of learning that would be important to all your learners. If it is only contained in the Alt Text, then sighted users could be at a disadvantage. More on this at the end of the post.

Effective practices for writing Alt Text

Some basic guidelines:

• Do not include “picture of” or “image of” in the Alt Text.
  • A screen reader will automatically announce that it has come to an image. So an Alt Text “Image of a honeybee” would be read aloud by a screen reader as “image, Image of a honeybee”.
• Using correct grammar can enhance the experience for screen reader users:
  • Capitalize the first letter.
  • End whole sentences with a period.
• As a general rule of thumb, keep Alt Text prose to about 100-200 characters or less.
  • Some people say that there is a limit of 125 characters or similar, but my research shows this not to be true. It might have been true once upon a time, but browsers and screen readers change all the time.
  • Look at using other methods for longer descriptions of an image.
• Many images contain embedded text which is not readable by assistive technology.
  • If any embedded words are important, make sure they are included in the Alt Text.
• As illustrated with the honeybee, don’t include unique information in the Alt Text.
  • Don’t put sighted users at a disadvantage by putting important information ONLY in the Alt Text.
• Don’t repeat yourself.
  • If the information is already available in the content within the proper context, repeating the same information in the Alt Text is a waste of the learner’s time.

You’re not trying to improve SEO in your online course

SEO is shorthand for Search Engine Optimization. You can visit many websites where they school you on writing good alt text for an image on a website. They tell you to be as descriptive as possible. Refer back to the bee and sunflower photo. Here are two possible Alt Text outcomes:

1. Honeybee sitting on the outer edge of the disc florets of a bright yellow sunflower.
2. Even though sunflowers are self-pollenating, research shows honeybee activity can improve crop yields.

Number 1 is very descriptive of the image. But what is the educational value of that text?

Number 2 conveys information that is relevant to the course and may be made more memorable including the image.

For webpage optimization, many web developers will fill the Alt Text for images with a bunch of keywords since search engines typically scan image Alt Text. Keep in mind that an online course has a very different purpose, so please don’t dump a bunch of keywords into your Alt Text.

Alt Text for Decorative Images

Images that are for decorative purposes do not need to be explained to students with no or low vision. To properly communicate the fact that the image is decorative, you need to use null alt text so that assistive technology can inform the student that the image is not important to the educational content of the topic.

Code example of null alt text: <img src=”yummy-hoagie.jpg” alt=””>

It is important to understand that null alt text (as shown above in the code with alt=””) is not the same as no alt text, where the alt text attribute is completely missing. If null alt text is entered, assistive technology will ignore the image altogether, which is a good thing since it conveys nothing important. However, if the alt text attribute is completely missing, then the student will be told that there is an image, and they will wonder what they are missing since there is no alt text to explain the importance of the image.

How do you determine whether an image is informative or decorative? I see many examples of where authors error on the side of caution. To me, the side of caution is to write Alt Text for an image just to be on the safe side in case it’s not merely decorative. I might be one who pulls the decorative lever more often than others. If it doesn’t add to the learning at hand, or if the info conveyed by the image is available in plain text somewhere else in the materials, then I’m likely to call it decorative.

Why not add Alt Text anyway even if the image is decorative?

Students using assistive technology such as a screen reading platform already have hurdles to clear in order to learn the course content. Anything that saves them time or doesn’t muddy the waters is a good thing for them. Adding Alt Text to a decorative image may even be a signal to the unsighted learner that there is something more important about the image than intended by the instructor. If you decide the image is decorative, then use the null Alt Text attribute and let the learner skip over the image entirely. It’s the learner-friendly thing to do.

Should decorative images even be a thing in online courses?

I’ve had several people ask whether it’s a good practice to just completely leave out decorative images. One school of thought is that if the images don’t enhance the learning in any significant way, then why have them at all?

Short answer: Decorative images are fine

Longer answer: Decorative images are fine as long as they are marked properly with the Null Alt Text attribute. Some of the main reasons for using decorative images include:

• adding an icon next to a text link to draw attention or increase the clickable area;
• the image is already described by surrounding text;
• adding borders, spacers, and corners for visual styling;
• because you want to include some “eye-candy”.
  • just because an unsighted student can’t appreciate the eye candy isn’t a reason to take it away from all learners (remember, there’s no enhancement of the learning with these images).

What about Captions?

Some software platforms make it easy to enter an image caption, while others require you to add the caption coding directly into the HTML for the page. If you know how to do this, it is an effective practice to put this information in the caption for the benefit of all students. If you enter the text in a caption, then do not repeat it in the alt text attribute.

If your authoring platform doesn’t provide an easy way to insert captions, then you might want to consider the other possible ways to provide your learners with the important info in the images.

Don’t Forget About Surrounding Text

Many experts will suggest that the best practice, and in this case I really do mean best, is to put all of the relevant information in the surrounding text. For the sunflower and honeybee photo above, that would mean that everything that is educationally important about that image should be explained in the on-page text that accompanies the image. Sighted students and those using assistive technology would all have access to the same information. If all the information is conveyed in the surrounding text, then it is appropriate to not repeat that info in the alt text, at which point the image can be treated as decorative for students using assistive technology.

Alt Text: a Useful Point-of-View, IMO

I like to think of Alt Text as if it’s living “behind the photo.” If you were viewing a physical photo album, it would be something that someone wrote on the back of the photo, or on the page behind the photo. Unless you know it’s there, you’ll never know what it says.

Of course it’s possible for a sighted student to find the Alt Text for a digital image on a webpage, but it’s not easy nor intuitive. Remember, the mouse over popup is NOT the Alt Text.

Refer back to the suggested Alt Text for the bee and sunflower. There is information in the Alt Text that is not obvious in the photo. This is a clear example, IMO, of a case where you should not use the Alt Text code attribute but should either insert a caption or put that information into the surrounding text on the page. That way the info is readable by sighted users as well as learners using assistive technology.

Some recommended resources for more info on Alt Text for simple images:

• Univ. of Washington: Making Images Accessible
• Accessibility and Usability at Penn State: Image ALT Text
• Harvard Univ.: Write good Alt Text to describe images
• WebAIM: Alternative Text

Directory to posts in this series:

1. Improving Accessibility of Online Courses – the why
2. What do Educators Need to Know about VPATs?
3. Alt Text for Simple Images in Online Courses
4. Complex Images – Going Beyond Simple Alt Text
5. Finding Videos with Good Captions
6. Captioning Videos for Your Online Courses
7. Improving the Accessibility of your HTML Content Pages – Part 1
8. Improving the #A11y of Your HTML Content Pages – Part 2
9. Making Word Documents Accessible for Online Learning
10. Making PowerPoint Files Accessible for Online Learning
11. Using Web-based Tools in Online Learning – #A11y
12. Six More Tips for Making Online Courses Accessible

Filed under: accessibility | Leave a comment »