Creating Accessible Structure

Structure provides learners the ability to scan through your documents and presentations. Assistive technologies can use the structure included in your documents and presentations for navigation. 

Structure includes:

1. Style - A collection of formatting instructions. You use styles to format the paragraphs in your documents and presentations.

2. Headings and Subheadings - Headings and subheadings organize content to guide readers. They allow text to stand out helping students and screen readers quickly examine your document.

3. Bulleted and Numbered Lists - Lists help provide structured order to content in a linear format. Use a bulleted list to show a list of related items. Use a numbered list to show steps in a process or the number of items in a collection.

• Use the "Title" style for your title, "Body Text" style for body text, "Caption" style for the picture captions, and "Heading 1" for the major headings.

• Existing styles can be customized or you can create a new style to change the formatting such as font size, color, and text indentation.

• Normal text fonts should be readable. Remember to use 11 to 12 point font size and Sans Serif fonts like Arial, Tahoma, and Calibri.

• Use line and paragraph spacing to format spacing in individual paragraphs and  documents. Avoid using the Enter Key to create extra spaces.

• Use the Tab Key to format data in a table to avoid using the SpaceBar to add multiple spaces in a document.

• Use the built-in slide layouts in your presentations to make sure the reading order works for everyone. Adding text boxes can change the reading order of your presentation when it is accessed by a student using a screen reader.

• Among the available styles available for headings and subheadings, some are labelled “Heading”: e.g., “Heading 1,” “Heading 2,” “Heading 3,” etc. This involves using the “Multilevel List” function to automatically apply consistent numbering to headings and subheadings in your documents and presentations.

• Using heading styles means you can quickly build a table of contents, reorganize your document, and reformat any text.

• Headings should be in hierarchical, logically ordered (heading 1, then 2, etc.); do not skip numbers.

• You can change the style of the heading and apply the style to the levels throughout the document.

Note: Headings provide navigation points, both for screen reader users and for anyone using the “navigation pane.” See Figure 1.

Figure 1: Navigation Pane in Microsoft Word

• In bulleted lists, each item or paragraph begins with a bullet character.

• Use bulleted lists for items that are in no required order. Bullets can be used to draw the learners attention to key points.

• Increase indents to create sub-bullets.

• In numbered lists, each item or paragraph begins with an expression that includes a number or letter and a separator such as a period or parenthesis.

• Use a numbered outline, also called a hierarchical outline, as a list arranged to show hierarchical relationships (tree structure) in numbered lists.

• Use numbered lists when you're explaining instructions that need to be performed in sequence.

• Canvas Guide Document. (2020). How do I add and modify text in the new rich content editor as an instructor? Retrieved from https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-26312-41521153883 

• Microsoft Office Support. (2020). Add a heading. Retrieved from https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-a-heading-3eb8b917-56dc-4a17-891a-a026b2c790f 

• Microsoft Office Support. (2020) Customize or create new styles. Retrieved from https://support.office.com/en-us/article/customize-or-create-new-styles-d38d6e47-f6fc-48eb-a607-1eb120dec563  

• Web Accessibility Initiative. (n.d.). Web accessibility tutorials: Headings. Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/page-structure/headings/ 

• Google Help Center. (2020) Add a title, heading, or table of contents in a document. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/docs/answer/116338 

• U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2019). Section 508 Guide: Tagging PDFs in Adobe Acrobat Pro. Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-tagging.pdf