Getting Started: Accessibility Core Areas 

About 

This site is focused on making Canvas content accessible (not uploaded files). We have included a section on uploaded file accessibility as an introduction. That section is under development. 

Our team believes that starting with Canvas content is a great way to develop foundational knowledge of accessibility issues that will later inform your work on other mediums such as digital documents. Improving Canvas site accessibility is also is a tremendous and immediate contribution to our students, and to meeting the iSchool's and University of Washington's goals. 

Accessibility issues tend to cluster around a handful of recurring core areas, and research from groups and usability studies show the core areas discussed on this are site are the most common barriers to accessibility. As these core areas are the same for any type of digital content, your knowledge of them will apply equally to digital documents as well as Canvas' web-based content. The pages on this site will demonstrate each of these core areas and introduce you to the tools that help identify and fix them in the Canvas environment.  

Getting Started

• Review the pages on this site and become familiar with these core areas. 

• Each core issue description includes a brief overview of the tools available to identify and fix issues. Be experimental and try out different ones as you develop your skills and personal workflow.

• Work on incremental improvements to your site! The below part of this page describes the tools and approaches. If you're very new, just start by clicking one of the "selected content tools" like the Canvas Accessibility Checker.

• Whichever the tools or approaches you choose, the process of identifying and fixing Canvas content serves as rich training and helps you become knowledgeable about these core issues--and in the future, your ability to create content from the start that won't create barriers or need any fixing!

Tools for Two Types of Scans

Entire site scans 

There are two tools that scan your entire Canvas site. Once you run the scan, there are various methods to fix the issues it identifies including filtering for specific issues, severity level, and difficulty. They also provide helpful scores where you can see your improvement in real time. One recommended strategy is to choose one of the accessibility core areas and use the tools' filters to target that issue and resolve all instances, and then next time continue to another issue. The two tools for site scans are:

• UDOIT

•  Ally Course Accessibility Report. 

Selected Content Scans 

There are three tools that you can use in Edit mode of any Canvas content such as a page, assignment description, or announcement etc. These tools only scan and identify issues on that particular content. These are great to use any (and every) time you're creating new content or working on existing content. Make clicking one of these a part of your workflow. The three tools for selected content scans are:

• Canvas Accessibility Checker

• Ally Accessibility Checker

• DesignPLUS Accessibility Checker.

Using Canvas Native Tools in Rich Content Editor

Visual scans are great. Canvas has native features for fixing virtually all of the accessibility core issues--and avoiding creating those issues from the start when you are aware of them. Keeping these core issues in the forefront of your mind, and using the native Canvas tools in tandem with checkers and scanners will help with that goal of creating content that is natively accessible from the start.

Resources & Getting Help

• For events and workshops, see the page in this site, News, Announcements & Events. 

• The Teaching and Learning Team is always happy to schedule a Zoom, or answer questions online. We can give demonstrations of the tools using a real Canvas site, help you devise a remediation plan, or help in any way possible as we all work together to create an equitable learning experience for all.