Hello, my name is Jen I work in the academic professional development team at Arden and I'm here to share with you an acronym called THRIVES to help you in designing digital accessible content. And accessibility is an extremely broad area and this acronym is not exhaustive in any way but hopefully you'll find it helpful and memorable when you're creating digital content. The acronym is THRIVES the T standing for tables, the H for hyperlinks, the R for recordings, the I for inclusive font, the V for visuals, the E for examine and the S for structure.

T

When adding a table try to remember to add row headers as this will help the user understand what each of the cells contain. Adding a table description or caption is also really important, as it will help people who use read-aloud technologies to have context about the table is about.

H 

When adding links or hyperlinks try to make them as meaningful and descriptive as possible. Avoid using long links with lots of different characters included in them and avoid using 'click here' because it doesn't really tell your user where they're going. Instead, where possible, link the words in your sentence to tell the user what they're going to see when they click on your link.

R

When you're creating a video make sure that you add closed captions and make sure they're as accurate as possible, and along with any audio that you're also producing, make sure that there is a downloadable and readable transcript available.

I

For text choose an inclusive font and one that will show different accents in other languages, and one which is usually Sans Serif, which is less decorative such as Arial, Calibri, Tahoma, Verdana, and ones that don't include decorative aspects like Times New Roman. This helps with readability for most text on digital platforms.

V

Add alternative text or alt text to all of your images this will provide a readable and descriptive account of what the image contains for anybody with visual impairments.

E

Use built-in accessibility checkers to examine, review, and fix any accessibility issues when you're creating in documents presentations or web pages. Popular software including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint include this feature.

S

Try to avoid using centered or justified text as it's difficult for readability. Left aligned text tends to be better when structuring your documents. Try to avoid adding emphasis using the Bold feature or by increasing the font size. Instead, use the applied Styles feature to add things like titles subheading-one, heading-one etc. This will help for readability and will really help those using screen readers to navigate your document.

And there you have it! Accessibility THRIVES. I hope you'll find this a useful and a memorable tool when you're creating your own content.