The CMALT Guidelines state that:

"Statements here should show how relevant legislation has influenced your work. You are not expected to have expert knowledge of all of these areas, but are expected to be aware of how they relate to your current practice."

There are two pieces of legislation relating to accessibility in a HE context:

Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 requires Higher Education institutions to ensure students have equal access to courses and services regardless of disability or other protected characteristics. Of particular relevance are Chapter 2, section 91(7) and 91(9), which together state that institutions must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to prevent disadvantaging students in terms of service provision or access.

Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (PSBAR) takes the Equality Act 2010 further, requiring a pro-active, rather than reactive approach to accessibility.

In particular, the PSBAR state that:

• websites and apps produced by public bodies (including HEIs) must comply with European accessibility standard EN 301 549.53 by meeting the AA success criteria of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). Although, there are now 2.1 standards, which should be the aim.
• users have the right to request access to inaccessible content in a different format
• websites must publish an accessibility statement

This legislation covers public-facing websites, VLEs and documents provided online, so it has considerable implications for the design of digital learning materials. The deadline for compliance varies depending on a few factors, but new material is generally expected to be accessible from the point of creation. The requirements of PSBAR and the implications for HE are summarised in the Accessible Virtual Learning Environments report (pages 17 and 21 are particularly useful).

My role involves a lot of direct interaction with students, so for me this legislation mainly affects how I design digital learning materials. This includes materials and content for blended learning courses and fully online resources, and also how these are disseminated through a VLE or another website.

At the April 2019 White Rose Learning Technologists’ Forum, Alistair McNaught summarised the implications of the PSBAR for content creators. A point he made that I found particularly relevant to my practice was that this legislation isn’t really new accessibility requirements, but rather a shift of responsibility; instead of the burden being primarily on students to request accessibility adaptations, the PSBAR puts the responsibility on institutions to provide materials that are accessible to all from the point of creation. This was a bit of an ‘a-ha!’ moment for me - by framing the PSBAR in terms of institutional responsibility, accessibility legislation could be interpreted as a requirement for an inclusive design approach to creating digital learning materials.

Inclusive design

Inclusive design (also called universal design) is a proactive, rather than reactive approach to creating accessible learning materials. This aligns with the social model of disability, which frames disability as a product of the environment, not the person. Under this social model, accessibility issues are shortcomings in materials design, therefore the design approach should change.

I like this cartoon by the Centre for Story-based Strategy to illustrate different approaches to accessible materials design:

Benefits of inclusive design

There are many benefits to inclusive materials design, not just complying with legislation:

I’m definitely still learning about accessibility and inclusive material design, but I have started to develop my knowledge and skills in three key areas:

Understanding accessibility

I learnt from the Understanding the WCAG 2.0 and W3C Cheatsheet resources that the WCAG 2.0 can be summarised according to four accessibility principles:

1. information must be perceivable (e.g., text descriptions are given for audio information and captions for images, text is legible in terms of size, colour contrast etc.)
2. the website/materials should be operable (e.g., navigation is clear and doesn’t require use of a mouse, time is given to consume content)
3. the information and operation must be understandable (e.g., language is clear, content is presented in predictable ways)
4. content must be robust to future changes in technology (i.e., content is accessible to current and future assistive technologies)

I found these principles to be a useful way to consider different aspects of accessibility, and understand the rationale behind the technical aspects of the individual guidelines. Later in this section, I’ll refer back to these as Principle 1 etc.

To create materials that comply with PSBAR legislation, an understanding of the accessibility principles isn’t sufficient - I also need to know what the specific standards are. For a more technical understanding of the WCAG 2.0 standards, I have found the How to meet WCAG 2.0 reference materials to be useful. This clearly lays out the guidelines in relation to each of the four accessibility principles, with details of the success criteria and instructions on how to meet them. For example, in relation to colour contrast, guideline 1.4.3 states that a minimum contrast of 4.5: 1 is needed to meet the AA standard required by PSBAR legislation. I found these technical details useful to gain a functional, rather than conceptual understanding of accessibility standards.

In terms of more general good practice in accessibility and inclusive design, I have learnt a lot from various workshops and other sessions, including:

• Future Teacher 3.0 Conference session on inclusive design
• Kirsten Thompson’s workshop “Everyday inclusion in everyday teaching” at the April 2019 White Rose Learning Technologists’ Forum
• UoY PDLT Show & Tell session: Inclusive Practice

In terms of digital materials, I have learnt from students’ accounts of their experiences:

• an interview with two visually impaired students who use a screenreader to access online materials (Basics of Inclusive Design for Online Education MOOC)
• a case study of disabled students’ experiences using a VLE (Gerrard 2007)
• discussions with my own students (one of whom has dyslexia and the other a visual impairment) about their use of online materials

These accounts have helped me consider experiences outside my own non-disabled perspective, which is key to creating inclusive materials. They have also increased my understanding of students’ use of assistive technology to access materials, both in terms of how tools work (e.g., screenreaders), and who may benefit from which tools (I didn’t previously know that TTS could be a useful tool for dyslexic students, for example).

These resources really increased my awareness of how disabled students may access web content and digital learning materials. In terms of how disabilities might affect web use, I’d previously only really thought about visual and hearing impairments, but these resources helped me consider a much wider range of user experiences, especially relating to cognitive and learning disabilities. I also learnt a lot about the tools and strategies that users access web content, such as adjusting the presentation of text, using a screenreader, or keyboard-only navigation.

Based on what I’ve learnt, I’ve incorporated a number of strategies into my practice to create more inclusive materials. Below, I’ve grouped these into broad categories, and identified the accessibility principle(s) that they relate to.

Text-based content

• size: use text of at least 12 points in materials (rather than the default 11 points), and use larger text on the VLE and presentation slides [P1].
• alignment: left-align headings & body text: this makes it easier to locate and follow lines of text, particularly for users with low vision or dyslexia [P1].
• colour contrast: select text and background colours to have a high enough level of contrast. I’ve started to use the WebAIM contrast checker to make sure that contrast is sufficient to meet the WCAG 2.0 AA standard (4.5:1), and preferably the AAA standard (7:1) [P1].
• highlighting text: use bold, not italics or underlined or capitals, which can be difficult to read or confused with hyperlinks [P1, 3].
• understandable content: use straightforward, clear language and explain unusual words to help users access the meaning [P3].

Organisation & labelling

• heading styles: this makes the structure easier to navigate with a screenreader or keyboard navigation, and improves consistency across documents. Google Docs uses heading for the Overview view and can also create a Table of Contents to make navigation even easier [P2, 3, 4].
• true lists: this allows users to adapt formatting and makes it easier for a screenreader to locate lists [P2, 3, 4].
• meaningful text for hyperlinks and filenames: text/names should give context to the site or document they point to so that they make sense in isolation, for example, ‘LSS2_Week 1_Course overview.pdf’ rather than ‘Slides.pdf’. This is highly beneficial for screenreader users, but also assists all users in understanding the purpose of materials and organising downloaded materials. This approach can be seen in the link text given in this section [P2, 4].
• VLE module template (Blackboard): increases consistency across module sites and makes navigation simpler and more predictable [P2, 3].

Images, videos and audio

• image alt text: give a brief description of the important content of informative images and specifically label decorative images. This allows screenreader users to access important content and to know what can be ignored. This is something that I’ve only really learnt about recently, but I’ve since made sure that images on new materials have appropriate alt text, including those on this site [P1, 4].
• subtitles or transcript (my resources): for Panopto screencasts, I have added captions to short video demonstrations and/or provided text-based alternatives. For screencasts explaining concepts, I felt that providing slides with a transcript (as Google Slides, PPT or PDF) is more effective than captions as there is already text on the video, and it also makes content accessible for visually impaired users. We also experimented with live captioning in Google Slides for the TELFest 2019 workshop. This seemed to work fairly well, but I'd have liked to get feedback from participants on whether they were useful or distracting.
• subtitles or transcript (3rd party videos): as much as possible I will use videos from Khan Academy or Ted Talks, which provide subtitles and interactive transcripts. I’ll also embed YouTube videos if subtitles have been provided, but avoid automatically generated subtitles as these can be confusing [P1]. As well as ensuring content is perceivable to students unable to access audio information, this also makes the content more accessible to non-native English speakers.
• colour use: ensure that colour isn’t the only way to distinguish information in graphs and figures, to avoid causing difficulties for users with a colour vision impairment [P1].

Visibility to screenreaders

• use master slide layouts: if needed, create a new layout in the master rather than adding extra text boxes on an individual slide. This makes sure that the content is visible to screenreaders (particularly in Powerpoint) and increases the consistency of slide design [P1, 4].
• use of SmartArt (Powerpoint) and Diagrams (Google Slides): I used to use a lot of SmartArt to make attractive slides, but since finding out that content isn’t accessible to screen readers, I’ve either not used SmartArt or have provided a text description in the presenter notes. However, I’ve been using Google Slides a lot more recently - experimenting with ChromeVox suggests that Diagrams in Google Slides are visible to screenreaders [P1, 4].
• pictures of text: I often include sections of textbook pages in presentations (Core Area 3b). As these are scanned images, the text is not accessible to screenreaders. For a simple compensation for this, I have added text behind the images that can be accessed if needed, but I need to learn more about providing better alternatives [P1, 4].
• use the Outline view tool: in Microsoft Office documents, this shows the information that will be visible to screenreaders, which I’ve found helpful. Google Docs also has an outline view, but this only shows headings. In all cases, this is useful to check how clear the document structure is [P2, 4].

User adaptability

After starting to learn about accessibility, I’ve started using GSuite tools for course materials much more than Microsoft or PDF documents (and sometimes instead of the VLE) as they allow users a lot of control over the presentation of the information and how they interact with it:

• users can easily adjust magnification, text size, text and image colours etc. directly in the browser [P1].
• using headers and the overview panel and/or table of contents can help users navigate easily through the content [P2, 4].
• students can use the Voice Typing (speech recognition) and Speak (text to speech) tools. These don’t just benefit students with visual or motor issues - a student with dyslexia has reported that these tools have been helpful in writing and proofreading their assignments [P4].
• students can use the Define tool to look up definitions of unknown words [P3].
• Docs, Slides and Sites are responsive on mobile devices, which makes content easier to read and also improves usability for all students [P1].

Xerte also allows users a lot of control:

• users can remove background images and change the text/background colours and contrast [P1].
• users can navigate through the table of contents or move through page by page [P2].
• users can navigate the tutorial and complete activities using either using the mouse or the keyboard [P4].

Evidence:

• 3a_Course overview (annotated to show use of some of these strategies)
• SO_How to... Build strong arguments_(Slides) (accessible slides: use of Diagrams and transcript in notes. Screencast alternative)
• 3a_Images with alt text (used in a discussion task)
• 3a_Exam figures (chosen to avoid conveying information through colour only)
• 3b_Embedded Ted Talk (subtitles available, also link to TED site for interactive transcript)
• 1b_Promotional video hosted on YouTube (subtitles and transcript available)
• 1b_VLE template site (clear structure, gives consistency across modules)
• SO_How to write in scientific style_(Xerte) (user-controlled visual presentation and navigation)
• SO_Using a paper to find other sources (Panoto with captions)
• This portfolio uses consistent heading structure and layout, has clear navigation, alt text for images and semantic link text.

My approach to meeting the WCAG 2.0 standards so far focused on the ‘easier’ aspects of inclusive design, and has been very much from my own perspective as a user without a disability. To continue developing my practice in the future, I will: