Making your Instructional Materials AccessibleMS Word, PowerPoint, Acrobat

Jonathan WhitingFebruary 17, 2013

Evolution of Accessible Design

Accommodation

Accommodation

• “People with disabilities don’t visit our site.”• Not ‘timely’ (e.g., call a phone number or mail

in a form)• Not ‘equivalent’ (text-only or ‘accessible’

versions)• “It’s not my job.”

Retrofitting

Retrofitting

• Accessibility is ‘bolted on’ to an existing product

• More expensive and time-consuming, at least initially

• “We can’t make it accessible so we’re not going to build it.”

Accessible Design

Accessible Design

• Accessibility is addressed throughout the design process (requirements, mockups, design, development, QA, etc.)

• Developers have training and support• Product is more usable and accessible for

everyone

How do you get to accessible design?

1. A shared commitment2. A concrete policy and plan3. Sufficient support for personnel4. Ongoing evaluation

Ensure your content is accessible to users with various disabilities

• Vision - blind, low vision, color-blind• Hearing - Deaf and Hard-of-hearing• Motor - Difficulty using a mouse or keyboard• Cognitive• Seizure

Blindness

• Headings• Alternative text for images• Meaningful link text• Reading order

HeadingsThe Wrong way to do headings:• PPT and MS Word- Plain text enlarged• HTML-<p class=“heading2”>Big text (usually) resized with CSS</p>

The right way to do headings• PPT- Use slide templates• Word- Use styles panel• HTML- <h2>Use true headings</h2>

What is equivalent alt text?

CONTENT and FUNCTION

VERY RARELY Description

Alternative text

alt=“Blue ITC logo with a small globe that serves as a dot in the i. Next to the logo is green text that reads Instructional Technology Council”

Meaningful link text

...For more information on this topic, read Essentials of Online Course Design: A Standards-Based Guide- http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Online-Course-Design-Standards-Based/dp/0415873002/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329661475&sr=1-11

Reading order

There’s that logo again

Inserting items on the page using text boxes etc. can sometimes cause reading order issues

Low visionUse good contrast and adequate font size. As you can see poor contrast and smaller font size make it much more difficult to read text. Also remember that you should not use images for

Color blindness

Color blindness

The green mushrooms listed here are OK to eat. The red mushrooms will kill you. – Amanita– Chanterelle– Porcini– Shitake– Tylopilus

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Color blindness

The green mushrooms listed here are OK to eat. The red mushrooms will kill you. – Amanita– Chanterelle– Porcini– Shitake– Tylopilus

Auditory disabilities

From webaim.org/intro/

Keyboard accessibility

For the most part, documents created in MS Office are keyboard accessible.

Keyboard Accessibility

CNN (boo!)vs.

WebAIM (hooray!)

The Secret to Everlasting Happiness

Please finish reading this text – it will give you the secret to everlasting happiness. The secret is simple, all you need to do is to stop worrying about the key to everlasting happiness and enjoy the moment.

Sorry! Time’s up!Better luck next time!

Understandable

• Be careful with movement and other distractions (including transitions)

• Semantic organization (headings, lists, etc.)• Be consistent

• Simplify , Simplify

Preferred Formats for Web Content

HTML > PDF > Doc/PPT > Anything else

...except PPT slides, then PDF is usually better

Which provides better accessibility?

PDF in a nutshell

• Tagged PDF = accessibility-enabled (not necessarily “accessible”) PDF

• Do as much as you can in the source document• Make sure you export correctly• Do not print to PDF• Need Acrobat Pro to edit tagged PDFs– TouchUp Reading Order tool is your friend (and

enemy)

Acrobat XI

• Improvements– Adding Alternative text– TouchUp Reading Order tool– Accessibility Wizard– Accessibility Checker

• Compatible with 64-bit versions of Office

wave.webaim.org