Closed captioning is essential for those who are deaf and hard of hearing, but they also help non-native English speakers, those who are unfamiliar with vocabulary, viewers with some learning disabilities, or those in a noisy environment. Audio transcripts also benefit many students. While they are essential for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, they also assist anyone who would like to read or search the transcript. 

Virtual meetings: Google Meet & Webex Meeting have live closed captioning capability. 

Resources

• WebAIM site on closed captioning, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions

• 4 Ways to create accessible video captions on ScreenPal

• Adding subtitles & captions in YouTube

Headings are short text phrases that introduce sections and subsections within a document or page.

Headings make digital content accessible by breaking up longer sections and giving meaningful structure to documents. Headings are not just styled bigger and bolder, but are marked up in the code and can be navigated with assistive technology tools.

Headings make digital content more accessible for people who use screen readers, are neurodivergent, and who benefit from good information design in general.

Resources

• How to apply, modify & create a heading style in Microsoft Word

• Microsoft Word: Heading Styles Quick Reference Guide

• Google Docs: Apply, Modify, and Create Paragraph Styles

Alternative text (alt text) is an essential element of digital accessibility. It ensures that images and other non-text content are understandable to all learners, including those using screen readers. Alt text is required whenever an image conveys information, meaning, or context that supports comprehension of the surrounding content. This includes visuals such as charts, graphs, maps, infographics, analytical photographs, and icons that represent actions or concepts (for example, a magnifying glass symbolizing “search”).

When writing alt text, focus on the purpose of the image—what do you want students to learn or understand from it? The goal is not to describe the image’s visual details, but to communicate its instructional meaning. To guide this process:

• Ask what the image communicates. What concept, data, or idea does it illustrate?

• Focus on relevance. Include only information that supports the learning objective; omit decorative or redundant details.

• Keep it concise. Most alt text should be one or two sentences that clearly convey meaning.

• Match the context. If the surrounding text explains the image, a brief description (e.g., “diagram of the water cycle”) may be sufficient. If the image stands alone, include more detail.

• Describe the function for interactive images. For example, an icon linking to a resource might use alt text such as “Open syllabus document.”

Images used solely for decoration—those that do not add information or context—should be marked as decorative. Examples include background textures, borders, or purely aesthetic stock photos. Marking decorative images correctly helps screen readers skip them, improving the overall experience for users with visual impairments.

Resources on alternative text

• WebAIM Alt Text site

• ASU Complex Image Description Generator

Clear and descriptive link text makes it easier for all users to navigate your content. When links are well-written, users can quickly understand where the link will take them, reducing confusion and improving the overall user experience. 

Users with disabilities, particularly those who rely on assistive technologies like screen readers, benefit greatly from meaningful link text. Screen readers read out the link text, so it should be descriptive enough to convey the purpose of the link without the surrounding context.

Accessible link text is short, descriptive, understandable, and unique:

• Short — Just a few words, no more than 5 if possible

• Descriptive — Describes where it goes or what it does, so a user knows what will happen in advance

• Understandable — Text that is readable for humans, not a long URL string

• Unique — Not the same as other link text on the same page or document, unless it goes to the same place

Avoid phrases that are meaningless out of context, such as “more,” “click here,” or “this article.” These links are confusing to people who are visually scanning content or browsing content by links only, with assistive technologies, including screen readers.

Good examples

• To learn more about building accessibility links, visit the WCAG Blog Website. 

• Visit the CTLED Website to learn more.

Bad examples

• To learn more visit: https://www.wcag.com/blog/writing-meaningful-link-text/ 

• Click here to learn more

When creating lists, use built-in tools to format your text as a list. Don’t just start new lines, or input special characters in place of bullets or numbers.

There are two types of lists:

• Unordered lists (with bullets) for items that have no particular order

  • Use in general, unless an order is required

• Ordered lists (with numbers) for items that have a sequence or order

  • Use for steps in a process, instructions, or ranked items

  • Do not use when the order is not important

Lists, when properly formatted, can have nested items. Use nested items to create hierarchy and relationships among items in a list.

Color Contrast It is important that you remember to use colors choices that make it readable for all. Some contrasting colors make it difficult for those with color blindness or any user if not used correctly. "Most of the time color is irrelevant in understanding content on the web. However, when colors are used to convey or differentiate information—such as a pie chart or bar graph, or using green and red text to indicate pass/fail or good/bad, etc.—this information should also be provided in another way".

Texture Enhancement Because of this, it is important to not use color alone to convey information. For example, if you need to create a bar chart using different colors, have the bar also be textured too. This way if someone can’t distinguish the color, they can distinguish it by texture. If a line chart, have dashed and dotted lines to accompany the color. If you use colored text for emphasis, bold or italicize it too. Color is okay as long as it is used in the right way.

Want to check if the color contrast is accessible before uploading to Canvas? Use the WebAIM Color Contrast Tool.

• Keep it simple: Complex tables are more work for content creators, as well as being harder to interpret for users. It’s usually better to break up complex tables into simple individual tables, each containing the data for one sub-topic.

• Responsive design: On small screens, in a small viewport, in zoomed views, with enlarged text, and in other situations, responsive tables often change format. Ensure that the structural relationship is available in all formats.

• Table separation: If several tables follow one another, don’t use a single table and put in an additional row of <th> cells. Screen readers may read aloud all <th> cells in a column, resulting in confusion. Start a new <table> when the topic changes.

Resources

• Visit the Table Tutorial website by W3C for more tips and examples

A scanned PDF is a compilation of images and, therefore, is unreadable to most assistive technologies. A scanned PDF is depicted when you cannot select the text in the document. If you are the owner of the document, it is best to keep the document within its original source (Google Doc or Microsoft Word) and utilize the built-in accessibility checker.

To turn a scanned PDF to searchable text, many programs offer OCR tools, including Adobe and YuJa Panorama. The library also has a scanner with a built-in OCR tool. OCR means Optical Character Recognition, which will scan your document to identify text. This does not mean your document is now fully accessible; it only means that it’s one step closer. Further remediation is required.

Resources

• How to Make a Scanned PDF Accessible (The Accessibility Guy)

• WebAIM PDF Accessibility

• Adobe Creative Suite is available for all faculty, staff, and students

Keyboard accessibility is one of the most important aspects of web accessibility. Many users with motor disabilities rely on a keyboard. Some people have tremors that don't allow for fine muscle control. Others have little or no use of their hands, or no hands at all. In addition to traditional keyboards, some users may use modified keyboards or other hardware that mimics the functionality of a keyboard. Blind users also typically use a keyboard for navigation. Users without disabilities may use a keyboard for navigation because of preference or efficiency.

Keys to test a website

• Tab: Navigate to links and form controls.

• Shift + Tab: Navigate backwards.

• Spacebar: Activate checkboxes and buttons.

• Enter: Activate links and buttons.

• Arrow keys: Radio buttons, select/drop-down menus, sliders, tab panels, auto-complete, tree menus, etc.

• Escape: Dismisses browser dialog or menu.