Use existing Canvas accessibility functions

Canvas Accessibility Checker

Did you know that Canvas already includes a tool that checks for you if your Canvas course is accessible to students or not? On every Canvas editing page at the bottom, there is an Accessibility Checker icon. When you click on this icon, you will receive information if there are cases of problems a student with a disability could face.

How to use the Accessibility Checker?

The Accessibility Checker is visible for you when you are in edit mode on one of your Canvas pages. Underneath the text box, there is a row of buttons with functions you could use, including the Accessibility Checker. After you click the Accessibility icon, the Accessibility Checker will report all accessibility issues on this specific page. A bar will open on the right hand side where you can see what the issues are and what action you need to take to solve them. Most issues you can fix directly with the Accessibility Checker. Follow their steps to fix the issues.

For example (see image below): you made a table without a header and the Accessibility Checker marks this as an issue. Action: Set table header>choose header>Apply.

After you have fixed all the issues presented by the Accessibility Checker you will get this balloons image in the bar. This means there are no accessibility issues detected and your Canvas page is accessible!

Want to see the Canvas Accessibility Checker into action? View the video below:

Want to know what the Canvas Accessibility Checker takes into account? Canvas communicates this list with us:

Adjacent links: Adjacent links with the same URL should be a single link. This rule verifies link errors where the link text may include spaces and break the link into multiple links.
Heading paragraphs: Headings should not contain more than 120 characters.
Image alt text: Images should include an alt attribute describing the image content.
Image alt filename: Image filenames should not be used as the alt attribute describing the image content. Currently, files uploaded directly to Canvas create a redirect that does not properly verify image filenames.
Image alt length: Alt attribute text is recommended to contain fewer than 120 characters.
Large text contrast: Text larger than 18pt (or bold 14pt) should display a minimum contrast ratio of 3:1.
Lists: Lists should be formatted as lists.
Sequential headings: Heading levels should not be skipped (e.g. H2 to H4). However, the tool does not check if the first header starts with H2 or whether the headings are sequential with the rest of the content in the page. Tables do not begin with H1, which is designated for the page title.
Small text contrast: Text smaller than 18pt (or bold 14pt) should display a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1.
Table captions: Tables should include a caption describing the contents of the table.
Table header scope: Table headers should specify scope and the appropriate structure.
Table header: Tables should include at least one header.

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