Instructional designers and instructors can use this checklist to create accessible online courses. It is based on the review of national and statewide online course design instruments (Baldwin & Ching, 2021).
Provide an accommodation statement for students early in the syllabus to ensure students that support is available and set the tone for student success
Use HTML for text content or link directly to web pages
Add alternative text for images and graphics to describe images to students who are unable to see them
Include meaningful hyperlink text that succinctly describes where the link points (not the URL)
Provide content in a variety of ways (e.g., in a combination of text, video, audio, and/or image format)
Confirm all course technology meets the same accessibility standards, including publisher materials
Ensure color contrast and do not use color alone to convey meaning
Caption all multimedia
Include sequential short, descriptive headers to aid navigation
Caption tables and include column and/or row headings
Avoid anything that flashes more than three times in a one-second period (e.g., Graphics Interchange Format [gifs])
Check that navigation and format are easily determined by user
Ensure slides meet the same accessibility standards (e.g., alternative text for images and graphics) and include a unique title for every slide.
Use bold font to emphasize words instead of underlining
Chunk content into brief segments that can be consumed in 5-minutes or less
Check accessibility using the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE), available in the Chrome Web store
Download a screen reader (Nonvisual Desktop Access [NVDA])
Ensure navigation is possible without the use of a mouse by unplugging the computer mouse and/or turning off the computer trackpad and using only the keyboard to interact with the course
Download the LMS mobile learning application to see how content displays on mobile devices
Canvas Users: Do not rely solely on the Canvas Accessibility Checker. It primarily detects issues with tables, color, and identifies titles that are longer than 120 characters.