Accessibility and the Rich Content Editor

Headings

Headings are the easiest way to start making your content clearer. In the past, you may have simple bolded the font of a heading and made it large. Stop doing that! Instead, use the rich content editor and choose the heading level. What this does it is allows a student that uses a screen reader to interact with the content the same way a sighted student would.

When you want a heading, select the Paragraph drop-down in editor. Once open, you can choose the heading that fits the level of your content.

• You should use the Headings in order - In Canvas, the list starts with Heading 2, because Title and Heading 1 are already used in the standard Canvas pages layout.

• Do not skip heading levels. Edit the size, color, and font of the heading to fit your preferences.

• Pressing the Enter/Return key after a header, sets the next line to paragraph.

When you set headings correctly this gives all students:

• Chunked content that is easily scanned.

• A quick overview of the type of content on the page. 

• A way to organize the content they read so they better understand and retain it. 

• An easy way jump to the section with the content they need.

Lists

To further clarify your content, you should consider if a list is better than a paragraph. When the answer is yes, use bullets for a list with no sequence and numbers for a list where sequence matters. You may have been doing this, but having you been using dashes or asterisks or typing in the numbers yourself?  Use the rich content editor instead.

When you are ready for a list:

1. Select the list type that matches your needs

2. Type a list item

3. Press the Enter/Return key and continue entering items

If you have already typed a list, highlight all the list items and choose the bullet list icon or the number list icon depending on your needs.

Here's what lists get you:

• Organized, easily read content.

• Content that is easy to rearrange. When you move an item in a numbered list, the list renumbers itself.

• Automatic indenting for nice white space. Hit tab while in a list item to embed another list level

• Clearly ordered sequences.

Again, using the rich content editor creates background information that will allow sight disabled students to interact with lists in the same way as sighted students, so the lists are useful to everyone.

Images Alt Text

Ever have an image not load and wonder what it was?  Alt text would have saved your day. In alal instances, alt text is essential.  The best time to add alt text is when you are adding images to your content.

1. Select the image icon in the rich content editor.

2. Browse for your image.

3. Create alt text for your image or designate it as decorative.

   • Note for the new RCE: Once inserted you click on the image and click the options button to insert the alt text.

Wow, I made that sound easy, but alt text takes practice.  The text you put in should answer this question: What is the content conveyed by the image? So it isn't necessarily a description, but the point of the image. Here are some other guidelines:

• It should not be file names with things like ".jpeg" at the end. At least remove the ".jpeg".

• Keep the alt text to 1-3 sentences. Longer descriptions should be part of the accompanying text.

• Do NOT use the phrases "image of ..." or "graphic of ..." to describe the image.

• Context matters.  Only you as the content creator really know the point of the image, so you get to decide the alt text.

Just know that having alt text is so essential for some students that you should make an attempt. With practice, it will get easier.  WebAIM Alternative Text analyzes the same image several ways so you can see some examples that will help you improve your use of alt text.

Accessibility Checker

The last icon circled on the rich content editor image above is the stick person which takes you to the accessibility checker.  This will review the content on the page, identify what may need improvement and even give you some guidance on how to fix issues.