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ColorADD® is a unique, universal, inclusive, and non-discriminative language that enables the color blind to identify colors, whenever color is a factor of identification, orientation, or choice.

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Resource on colour blindness

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Introduction - Considering Colour Vision Deficiency

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Use these tools and techniques to improve the accessibility of your products and services.

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There are several types of inherited colour blindness. For information on acquired colour vision defects refer to our page Acquired Colour Vision Defects

Trichromacy

Normal colour vision uses all three types of light cones correctly and is known as trichromacy. People with normal colour vision are known as trichromats.

Anomalous Trichromacy

People with 'faulty' trichromatic vision will be colour blind to some extent and are known as anomalous trichromats. In people with this condition all of their three cone types are used to perceive light colours but one type of cone perceives light slightly out of alignment, so that there are three different types of effect produced depending upon which cone type is 'faulty'.
Normal Vision Deuteranomaly
The different anomalous conditions are protanomaly, which is a reduced sensitivity to red light, deuteranomaly which is a reduced sensitivity to green light and is the most common form of colour blindness and tritanomaly which is a reduced sensitivity to blue light and is extremely rare.

The effects of anomalous trichromatic vision can range from almost normal colour perception to almost total absence of perception of the 'faulty' colour.

People with deuteranomaly and protanomaly are collectively known as red-green colour blind and they generally have difficulty distinguishing between reds, greens, browns and oranges. They also commonly confuse different types of blue and purple hues.

People with reduced blue sensitivity have difficulty identifying differences between blue and yellow, violet and red and blue and green. To these people the world appears as generally red, pink, black, white, grey and turquoise.

See the dichromacy images below - about half of people with anomalous trichromacy will see the world in a similar way to those with dichromacy but their ability to perceive colours will improve in good light and deteriorate in poor light. Often their colour perception can be as poor as it is for those with dichromacy.

People with anomalous dichromacy can have either inherited colour blindness, in which case their ability to see colours will remain the same, or they can have acquired it, in which case their condition could get worse, or possibly improve over time

Dichromacy

People with dichromatic colour vision have only two types of cones which are able to perceive colour i.e. they have a total absence of function of one cone type. Lack of ability to see colour is the easiest way to explain this condition but in actual fact it is a specific section of the light spectrum which can't be perceived. For convenience we call these areas of the light spectrum 'red', 'green' or 'blue' . The sections of the light spectrum which the 'red' and 'green' cones perceive overlap and this is why red and green colour vision deficiencies are often known as red/green colour blindness and why people with red and green deficiencies see the world in a similar way.

People with protanopia are unable to perceive any 'red' light, those with deuteranopia are unable to perceive 'green' light and those with tritanopia are unable to perceive 'blue' light.

People with both red and green deficiencies live in a world of murky greens where blues and yellows stand out. Browns, oranges, shades of red and green are easily confused. Both types will confuse some blues with some purples and both types will struggle to identify pale shades of most colours.

However, there are some specific differences between the 2 red/green deficiencies.
Protanopia
Protanopes are more likely to confuse:-
1. Black with many shades of red
2. Dark brown with dark green, dark orange and dark red
2. Some blues with some reds, purples and dark pinks
3. Mid-greens with some oranges
Deuteranopes
Deuteranopes are more likely to confuse:-
1. Mid-reds with mid-greens
2. Blue-greens with grey and mid-pinks
3. Bright greens with yellows
4. Pale pinks with light grey
5. Mid-reds with mid-brown
6. Light blues with lilac
Tritanopes
The most common colour confusions for tritanopes are light blues with greys, dark purples with black, mid-greens with blues and oranges with reds.

The images show how the beautiful colours of the pigments are lost to people with each type of dichromatic vision.

Monochromacy (achromatopsia)
Normal Vision Monochromacy
People with monochromatic vision can see no colour at all and their world consists of different shades of grey ranging from black to white, rather like only seeing the world on an old black and white television set. Achromatopsia is extremely rare, occuring only in approximately 1 person in 33,000 and its symptoms can make life very difficult. Usually someone with achromatopsia will need to wear dark glasses inside in normal light conditions.

We have had several very concerned people contact us via this website because they or their children have been diagnosed by their optician with 'total colour blindness'. Although we are unable to advise on the diagnosis of specific cases we have undertaken further research to try and understand why so many people are being told they are totally colour blind when in reality they are much more likely to have a severe form of red-green colour blindness. Our research has revealed that in many cases opticians have only received basic training on colour vision deficiency and some may therefore be incorrectly interpreting the results of the Ishihara tests.

If you have been diagnosed as 'totally' colour blind please follow the links to these two specialist websites for further information. If you think you do have the symptoms of achromatopsia ask your optician to refer you to a specialist who can confirm your condition.

www.achromat.org
www.achromatopsia.org

Statistics

There is general agreement that worldwide 8% of men and 0.5% of women have a colour vision deficiency. These figures rise in areas where there is a greater number of white (Caucasian) people per head of population, so in Scandanavia the figures increase to approximately 10-11% of men. By contrast in sub-Saharan Africa there are few colour blind people. Countries such as India and Brazil have a relatively high incidence of colour vision deficients because of the large numbers of people with mixed race genes in their genetic history.

The 8% of colour blind men can be divided approximately into 1% deuteranopes, 1% protanopes, 1% protanomalous and 5% deuteranomalous. Approximately half of colour blind people will have a mild anomalous deficiency, the other 50% have moderate or severe anomalous conditions.

Numbers of tritanopes/tritanomalous people and achromats is very small, perhaps 1 in 30-50,000 people.

Reliable statistics for people with an acquired form of colour vision deficiency are difficult to find but as many as 3% of the population could be affected because age-related deficiency is relatively common in the over 65s and therefore on the increase in the UK due to the rising numbers of elderly people per capita.

To put these statistics in context, an all-boys school in the Home Counties of England with 1000 pupils would have approximately 100 colour deficient students. 12-13 would be deuteranopes, 12-13 would be protanopes, 12-13 would have a form of protanomaly and 62 would have a form of deuteranomaly. About half of those with an anomalous condition would have a moderate to severe form of deficiency.

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There are several types of inherited colour blindness. For information on acquired colour vision defects refer to our page Acquired Colour Vision Defects Trichromacy Normal colour vision uses all three types of light cones correctly and is known as trichromacy. People with normal colour vision are known as trichromats.

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Readability and accessibility: how type influences readability

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Readability and accessibility: how type influences readability

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How type influences readability – Fonts Knowledge - Google Fonts

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Reading is what we do, and readability refers to qualities of a text that make reading easier. This includes content decisions, or format decisions, which help a reader to easily engage with and comprehend the message intended by the author.

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A plain-language guide to WCAG accessibility standards. Friendly explanations that make accessibility easier to understand, one criterion at a time.

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AbilityNet guide to European Accessibility Act readiness

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AbilityNet guide to European Accessibility Act readiness

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department for education accessibility and inclusive design guidelines and training

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department for education accessibility and inclusive design guidelines and training

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Everything you need to understand how we create accessible, inclusive products and services in
the Department for Education.

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This page lists the new success criteria in WCAG 2.2, with:

A brief introduction of what to do and why it's important

Quotes from personas to help you understand some aspects of the success criteria

Links to Understanding documents that explain the success criteria in detail and provide more examples

Page Contents

Introduction

For an introduction to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and more about versions 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2, see the WCAG Overview.

WCAG 2.2 was published as a "W3C Recommendation" web standard on 5 October 2023.

Changes from WCAG 2.1 to WCAG 2.2
WCAG 2.2 provides 9 additional success criteria since WCAG 2.1. They are introduced on this page.
The 2.0 and 2.1 success criteria are essentially the same in 2.2, with one exception: 4.1.1 Parsing is obsolete and removed from WCAG 2.2. More information is in WCAG 2 FAQ, 4.1.1 Parsing. WCAG 2.2 includes Notes about different languages; more information is in WCAG 2 FAQ, internationalization.

Provide ways to help users navigate, find content, and determine where they are.

2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) (AA)

WCAG success criteria:

When a user interface component receives keyboard focus, the component is not entirely hidden due to author-created content.

Note: Where content in a configurable interface can be repositioned by the user, then only the initial positions of user-movable content is considered for testing and conformance of this Success Criterion.

Note: Content opened by the user may obscure the component receiving focus. If the user can reveal the focused component without advancing the keyboard focus, the component with focus is not considered hidden due to author-created content.

Understanding Focus Not Obscured (Minimum)
2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) (AAA)

In brief:
(Persona, problem, and works well same as 2.4.12 above.)

WCAG success criteria:

When a user interface component receives keyboard focus, no part of the component is hidden by author-created content.

Understanding Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced)
2.4.13 Focus Appearance (AAA)

In brief:

Persona example - a reporter with repetitive stress injury who doesn't use a mouse:
and Retiree with low contrast sensitivity:

WCAG success criteria:

When the keyboard focus indicator is visible, an area of the focus indicator meets all the following:

is at least as large as the area of a 2 CSS pixel thick perimeter of the unfocused component or sub-component, and

has a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 between the same pixels in the focused and unfocused states

Exceptions:

The focus indicator is determined by the user agent and cannot be adjusted by the author, or

The focus indicator and the indicator's background color are not modified by the author.

Note: What is perceived as the user interface component or sub-component (to determine enclosure or size) depends on its visual presentation. The visual presentation includes the component's visible content, border, and component-specific background. It does not include shadow and glow effects outside the component's content, background, or border.

Note: Examples of sub-components that may receive a focus indicator are menu items in an opened drop-down menu, or focusable cells in a grid.

Note: Contrast calculations can be based on colors defined within the technology (such as HTML, CSS and SVG). Pixels modified by user agent resolution enhancements and anti-aliasing can be ignored.

Understanding Focus Appearance
Make it easier for users to operate functionality through various inputs beyond keyboard.

2.5.7 Dragging Movements (AA)

WCAG success criteria:

All functionality that uses a dragging movement for operation can be achieved by a single pointer without dragging, unless dragging is essential or the functionality is determined by the user agent and not modified by the author.

Note: This requirement applies to web content that interprets pointer actions (i.e. this does not apply to actions that are required to operate the user agent or assistive technology).

Understanding Dragging Movements
2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) (AA)

WCAG success criteria:

The size of the target for pointer inputs is at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, except where:

Spacing: Undersized targets (those less than 24 by 24 CSS pixels) are positioned so that if a 24 CSS pixel diameter circle is centered on the bounding box of each, the circles do not intersect another target or the circle for another undersized target;

Equivalent: The function can be achieved through a different control on the same page that meets this criterion;

Inline: The target is in a sentence or its size is otherwise constrained by the line-height of non-target text;

User agent control: The size of the target is determined by the user agent and is not modified by the author;

Essential: A particular presentation of the target is essential or is legally required for the information being conveyed.

Note: Targets that allow for values to be selected spatially based on position within the target are considered one target for the purpose of the success criterion. Examples include sliders with granular values, color pickers displaying a gradient of colors, or editable areas where you position the cursor.

Note: For inline targets the line-height should be interpreted as perpendicular to the flow of text. For example, in a language displayed top to bottom, the line-height would be horizontal.

Understanding Target Size (Minimum)
Guideline 3.2 Predictable

Make Web pages appear and operate in predictable ways.

3.2.6 Consistent Help (A)

WCAG success criteria:

If a web page contains any of the following help mechanisms, and those mechanisms are repeated on multiple web pages within a set of web pages, they occur in the same relative order to other page content, unless a change is initiated by the user:

Human contact details;

Human contact mechanism;

Self-help option;

A fully automated contact mechanism.

Note: Help mechanisms may be provided directly on the page, or may be provided via a direct link to a different page containing the information.

Note: For this Success Criterion, the same relative order can be thought of as how the content is ordered when the page is serialized. The visual position of a help mechanism is likely to be consistent across pages for the same page variation (e.g., CSS break-point). The user can initiate a change, such as changing the page's zoom or orientation, which may trigger a different page variation. This criterion is concerned with relative order across pages displayed in the same page variation (e.g., same zoom level and orientation).

Understanding Consistent Help
Guideline 3.3 Input Assistance

Help users avoid and correct mistakes.

3.3.7 Redundant Entry (A)

WCAG success criteria:

Information previously entered by or provided to the user that is required to be entered again in the same process is either:

auto-populated, or

available for the user to select.

Except when:

re-entering the information is essential,

the information is required to ensure the security of the content, or

previously entered information is no longer valid.

Understanding Redundant Entry
3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) (AA)

WCAG success criteria:

A cognitive function test (such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle) is not required for any step in an authentication process unless that step provides at least one of the following:

Alternative

Another authentication method that does not rely on a cognitive function test.

Mechanism

A mechanism is available to assist the user in completing the cognitive function test.

Object Recognition

The cognitive function test is to recognize objects.

Personal Content

The cognitive function test is to identify non-text content the user provided to the website.

Note: "Object recognition" and "Personal content" may be represented by images, video, or audio.

Note: Examples of mechanisms that satisfy this criterion include:

1. support for password entry by password managers to reduce memory need, and

2. copy and paste to reduce the cognitive burden of re-typing.

Understanding Accessible Authentication (Minimum)
3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) (AAA)

WCAG success criteria:

A cognitive function test (such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle) is not required for any step in an authentication process unless that step provides at least one of the following:

Alternative

Another authentication method that does not rely on a cognitive function test.

Mechanism

A mechanism is available to assist the user in completing the cognitive function test.

Understanding Accessible Authentication (Enhanced)
About the Personas

These personas are representations of people with disabilities developed from qualitative data on real people.

The linked persona roles go to the Stories of Web Users. That page has other personas with different disabilities.

Please share your ideas, suggestions, or comments via e-mail to the publicly-archived list wai@w3.org or via GitHub.

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This page lists the new success criteria in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. It includes quotes from personas to help you understand some aspects of the success criteria.

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European accessibility act: everything you need to know

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European accessibility act: everything you need to know

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Council Post: The European Accessibility Act: Everything You Need To Know

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The EU believes that this directive will not only help people with disabilities but will also provide businesses with a single set of rules regarding accessibility in the EU.

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ANNEX I

ACCESSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

General accessibility requirements related to all products covered by this directive in accordance with Article 2(1)

Products must be designed and produced in such a way as to maximise their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities and shall be accompanied where possible in or on the product by accessible information on their functioning and on their accessibility features.

User interface and functionality design:

The product, including its user interface, shall contain features, elements and functions, that allow persons with disabilities to access, perceive, operate, understand and control the product by ensuring that:

Support services:

Where available, support services (help desks, call centres, technical support, relay services and training services) shall provide information on the accessibility of the product and its compatibility with assistive technologies, in accessible modes of communication.

Accessibility requirements related to products in Article 2(1), except for the self-service terminals referred to in Article 2(1)(b)

In addition to the requirements of Section I, the packaging and instructions of products covered by this Section shall be made accessible, in order to maximise their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities. This means that:

the instructions for the installation and maintenance, storage and disposal of the product not provided on the product itself but made available through other means, such as a website, shall be publicly available when the product is placed on the market and shall comply with the following requirements:

Section III

General accessibility requirements related to all services covered by this Directive in accordance with Article 2(2)

The provision of services in order to maximise their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities, shall be achieved by:

providing information about the functioning of the service, and where products are used in the provision of the service, its link to these products as well as information about their accessibility characteristics and interoperability with assistive devices and facilities:

Additional accessibility requirements related to specific services

The provision of services in order to maximise their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities, shall be achieved by including functions, practices, policies and procedures and alterations in the operation of the service targeted to address the needs of persons with disabilities and ensure interoperability with assistive technologies:

Specific accessibility requirements related to the answering of emergency communications to the single European emergency number '112' by the most appropriate PSAP

In order to maximise their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities, the answering of emergency communications to the single European emergency number '112' by the most appropriate PSAP, shall be achieved by including functions, practices, policies and procedures and alterations targeted to address the needs of persons with disabilities.

Emergency communications to the single European emergency number '112' shall be appropriately answered, in the manner best suited to the national organisation of emergency systems, by the most appropriate PSAP using the same communication means as received, namely by using synchronised voice and text (including real time text), or, where video is provided, voice, text (including real time text) and video synchronised as total conversation.

Accessibility requirements for features, elements or functions of products and services in accordance with Article 24(2)

The presumption to fulfil the relevant obligations set out in other Union acts concerning features, elements or functions of products and services requires the following:

Section VII

Functional performance criteria

In order to maximise the foreseeable use by persons with disabilities, when the accessibility requirements, set out in Sections I to VI of this Annex, do not address one or more functions of the design and production of products or the provision of services those functions or means shall be accessible by complying with the related functional performance criteria.

Those functional performance criteria may only be used as an alternative to one or more specific technical requirements, when these are referred to in the accessibility requirements, if and only if the application of the relevant functional performance criteria complies with the accessibility requirements and it determines that the design and production of products and the provision of services results in equivalent or increased accessibility for the foreseable use by persons with disabilities.

(a) Usage without vision

Where the product or service provides visual modes of operation, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that does not require vision.

(b) Usage with limited vision

Where the product or service provides visual modes of operation, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that enables users to operate the product with limited vision.

(c) Usage without perception of colour

Where the product or service provides visual modes of operation, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that does not require user perception of colour.

(d) Usage without hearing

Where the product or service provides auditory modes of operation, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that does not require hearing.

(e) Usage with limited hearing

Where the product or service provides auditory modes of operation, it shall provide at least one mode of operation with enhanced audio features that enables users with limited hearing to operate the product.

(f) Usage without vocal capability

Where the product or service requires vocal input from users, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that does not require vocal input. Vocal input includes any orally-generated sounds like speech, whistles or clicks.

(g) Usage with limited manipulation or strength

Where the product or service requires manual actions, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that enables users to make use of the product through alternative actions not requiring fine motor control and manipulation, hand strength or operation of more than one control at the same time.

(h) Usage with limited reach

The operational elements of products shall be within reach of all users. Where the product or service provides a manual mode of operation, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that is operable with limited reach and limited strength.

(i) Minimising the risk of triggering photosensitive seizures

Where the product provides visual modes of operation, it shall avoid modes of operation that trigger photosensitive seizures.

(j) Usage with limited cognition

The product or service shall provide at least one mode of operation incorporating features that make it simpler and easier to use.

(k) Privacy

Where the product or service incorporates features that are provided for accessibility, it shall provide at least one mode of operation that maintains privacy when using those features that are provided for accessibility.

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DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/882 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

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Free PDF/UA checker

The PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC) is freeware, that you can use for PDF accessibility testing. With PAC, the first worldwide ISO 14289-1 (PDF/UA) validator, you can check your PDFs for compliance with PDF/UA and WCAG standards.

The newest version is PAC 2024 and replaces PAC 2021.

Key features of PAC:

A PDF/UA-check with all machine-testable checkpoints of the Matterhorn Protocol

A WCAG-check with all machine-testable checkpoints of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1

Quality checks for simplifying the visual inspection

A screenreader preview for visually evaluating the logical structure of the document

A view of the tag tree with all properties and attributes

Statistics about the document structure

A printable summary report

Download PAC

Download the newest version here: PAC 2024 (only for Windows)

You can get there previous versions like PAC 2021 or PAC 3 as well.

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Free PDF/UA checker The PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC) is freeware, that you can use for PDF accessibility testing. With PAC, the first worldwide ISO 14289-1 (PDF/UA) validator, you can check your...

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PDF/UA File Format - What is PDF/UA? | Adobe

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Discover more about the PDF/UA standard, designed to ensure PDFs are accessible for all. We explore its origins, benefits and more in this useful guide.

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Our policy will ensure that, as far as possible, our online content, documentation, multimedia, teaching and training content, and digital applications and platforms are accessible to all.

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Hello and welcome

To the Make Things Accessible website, a repository for guidance material and useful resources for organisations looking to improve their digital accessibility.

This project is a shared effort between a number of London-based universities looking to pool our efforts and knowledge on delivering accessible experiences for students and staff.

The guidance material found on this website is aimed to help you complete accessibility related tasks whether that be better understanding of accessibility regulations, including accessibility requirements into procurement, conducting basic accessibility checks, and many other topics.

Our guidance material is sorted into a number of 'tags' which can help you filter for relevant information. You can browse all material in the guidance section or filter for specific topics by selecting relevant 'tags'.

If you can't find what you are looking for and get stuck, we have helpful FAQs and Glossary pages which may offer assistance. If there are topics that we have not yet added but you think we should, something we have gotten wrong, or you want to contact us for any other reason please reach out.

Latest guides

Our latest digital accessibility guides are displayed in this section, this will be updated each time we produce a new guide, alternatively, you can view all guides here.

WCAG 2.2 is very close to becoming the new standard and at present it adds 9 additional success criteria and removes one...

PDF and Online Flipbooks are website addons used to make documents on a website more visually appealing by evoking the t...

These 2 ARIA attributes seem to be getting mixed up quite often, we find them used interchangeably and sometimes even to...

This guide provides guidance on how to use access keys and why you should not use them.

Overlays refers to a range of products which offer to fix accessibility issues automatically on a website. The claims th...

Why are focus indicators important, who needs them, why are some designers and devs averse to them and how can we make u...

Latest stories from AAA

Make Things Accessible are proud to collaborate with Access and Assistance for All (AAA) a campaign run by the British Youth Council. The campaign aims to encourage education organisations to sign up to the charter, which encourages supporters to ensure learning is inclusive for all students and make accommodations whenever necessary. Within the AAA section of this site, there are real student stories, which highlight some of the barriers current and previous students with disabilities have faced during their studies. there is a small selection of stories below, alternatively, you can view all Student stories here. You can also visit the AAA Home page, to find out about the awesome work AAA doing to make learning more inclusive.

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A repository of guidance & resources for organisations & individuals aiming to improve digital accessibility, through web development, documents and other digital media

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Accessible PDF guidance from Reading University

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Accessible PDF guidance from Reading University

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PDF has been a popular format to share documents. However, it is much easier to make the original document (in Word or PowerPoint) accessible than making the PDF version of the document accessible. The Goverment Digital Service is recommending to publish content in HTML rather than PDF to improve accessibility.

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Typographic mistakes that hurt accessibility

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Typographic mistakes that hurt accessibility

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3 typography mistakes that hurt accessibility (and how to fix them) | Vision Australia. Blindness and low vision services

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Discover how to select an accessible typeface or font for your digital assets, avoiding common typography mistakes that cause confusion and access barriers.

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Why You Should Never Use Pure Black for Text or Backgrounds

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Why You Should Never Use Pure Black for Text or Backgrounds

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Why You Should Never Use Pure Black for Text or Backgrounds

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Did you know that pure black text can cause eye strain? A survey found that “58 percent of adults in the U.S.” have experienced eye strain from working on computers. Designers can do their part to reduce the likelihood of eye strain on their designs by paying attention to the color of black they use…

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Optimal Colors to Improve Readability for People with Dyslexia

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Optimal Colors to Improve Readability for People with Dyslexia

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Study Focus: The research examines how text and background colors can improve readability for people with dyslexia, comparing user performance and preferences.

Methodology: The study involved eye-tracking and questionnaires with 23 participants with dyslexia and 92 without, using various color pairs.

Findings: People with dyslexia read faster with lower color contrasts (e.g., black & creme), while those without dyslexia preferred higher contrasts (e.g., black & white).

Recommendations: Text customization should consider both quantitative performance data and user preferences to enhance readability for people with dyslexia.

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WAI R&D Symposia " Text Customization Home " Proceedings " This paper.

This paper is a contribution to the Text Customization for Readability Online Symposium. It was not developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and does not necessarily represent the consensus view of W3C staff, participants, or members.

Luz Rello. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, luzrello@acm.org

Ricardo Baeza-Yates. Yahoo! Research & Universitat Pompeu Fabra, rbaeza@acm.

1. Problem Description

In this study we analyze how an specific aspect of text customization, text and background colors, can improve readability of people with dyslexia. Our user study compares two kinds of data, quantitative (user performance) and qualitative (user preferences), taking into consideration previous recommendations and the color luminosity ratio prescribed by the WCAG 2.0. (W3C, 2008).

2. Background

The role of colors in readability has been extensively discussed in relationship to dyslexia, a reading disability which occurs in around 10-17.5% of the English and 7.5-11.8% of the Spanish speaking population (Rello and Baeza-Yates, 2012). However, when reading the Web, poor colored text is one of the key problems encountered by people with dyslexia (McCarthy and Swierenga, 2010).

Previous user studies showed that specific text and background colors could be beneficial for reading on the screen (Gregor and Newell 2000; Rello, Baeza-Yates and Kanvinde, 2012). Moreover, text customization suggestions broadly agree that people with dyslexia normally prefer lower brightness and color differences among text and background compared to the average reader (Bradford, 2011; Pedley 2006; British Dyslexia Association, 2012). However, the relationship between this preference and the minimum color luminosity ratio prescribed by the W3C has not been studied.

In our study we empirically test previous recommendations and compare them with the W3C algorithm and the standard reading of a control group.

3. Approach

Our approach separates accessibility needs and personal preferences which are frequently mixed in the recommendations regarding colors and readability. Therefore, our tests were composed of two parts: (a) a set of texts to be read using eye-tracking to study the reading performance and (b) a questionnaire to collect the user preferences. Through this methodology we distinguish the aspects of text customization which allows readers with dyslexia to read more effectively and optional suggestions regarding their preferences. Each test was performed by 23 participants with dyslexia (Rello, Baeza-Yates and Kanvinde, 2012) and 92 participants without dyslexia (Rello and Marcos, 2012).

For the selection of the color pairs we took into consideration: (a) the previous literature, (b) the recommendations, (c) their frequency in the Web, and (d) their luminosity contrast ratio. The color pairs studied are given in Table 1.

Text and background color

Color difference

Brightness difference

Table 1: Color and brightness difference for the text and background color pairs. The RGB codes for the colors are presented in parenthesis and used for the cell text and background.

The pairs black & white and blue & white were chosen because they are the most commonly used. We selected off-black & off-white because it is recommended in Web accessibility for people with dyslexia (Bradford, 2011). The pairs brown & dark green and blue & yellow were included in the study because they were chosen by people with dyslexia in previous experiments (Gregor et al., 2003; Gregor and Newell, 2000). We chose black & creme because it is used -and recommended- by the British Dyslexia Association for their website and we selected black & yellow because of its high contrast.

Since the pair brown & dark green has a lower color contrast than the required by the WCAG 2.0, we created a dark brown & light green with the same color hue but following the W3C algorithm to compare both of the color pairs.

Each of the color pairs were presented in random order containing different comparable texts. The texts have the same length (22 syllables), belong to the same genre, and have the same metric and rhythm. They were written in sans serif arial (Al-Wabil, Zaphiris and Wilson, 2006), 20 points size, unjustified text (Pedley, 2006), and same line/word/character spacing.

The texts were presented to the participants to be read them in silence while they were recorded by the eye-tracker. Then, the participant filled a questionnaire regarding their personal preferences about the colors and their readability. The participants were trying to extract meaning from the text because they were expecting comprehension questions although the questionnaires were only about their preferences.

4. Challenges

There are three weaknesses in our methodology which will be addressed in future experiments. First, the color pairs were presented in random order but not in a counter-balanced order. Therefore we cannot be certain if some of the results could be affected by the position of the textual fragment in the screen and if the preference data is biased by order effects. Second, the texts are too small to draw strong conclusions. Third, the texts were presented alone in the screen, thus we cannot predict the color effect in other reading contexts such as Web browsing.

5. Outcomes

In Figure 1 we can see the comparison of the user performance and preferences, among the different color values across people with and without dyslexia. The performance is measured in reading time (mean of the fixation duration in seconds) and the preferences are represented by the percentage of the participants choice. Shorter fixations are preferred to longer ones, because according to previous studies (Just and Carpenter, 1980), readers make longer fixations at points where processing loads are greater.

The greatest difference among groups is on the black & white pair: while the majority of people without dyslexia prefer it (32.67%), only 13.64% of the participants with dyslexia chose black text on white background.

Participants without dyslexia tend to prefer color pairs with a higher color and brightness contrast while people with dyslexia read faster when color pairs have lower contrasts. For instance, the color pair which was the fastest to read by the participants with dyslexia was black & creme (mean of 0.214 for the fixation duration) while black text over yellow background presents the largest fixation duration mean (0.239 seconds). Although the pair off-black & off-white is the one recommended in Web design for dyslexics (Bradford, 2011), none of the users with dyslexia selected it. This pair presents the highest fixation duration mean for the participants without dyslexia (0.193 seconds).

Figure 1: Fixation duration (s) and user preferences (%) for the people with and without dyslexia (detailed description is at the end of paper).

The W3C algorithm suggests to avoid brightness differences less than 125 and color differences less than 500. Our results are consistent with this threshold since the only pair which did not match the W3C algorithm (brown & dark green) presented high fixation durations for both groups (the second and the third highest for people without and with dyslexia, respectively) and were also hardly selected by the participants (4.55% for the participants without dyslexia and 0.99% for the participants with dyslexia). Surprisingly, the pair dark brown & light green which is very similar in terms of color hue but differ from the brown & dark green in term of brightness and color contrast presents the lowest and second lowest fixations duration for people with dyslexia and without dyslexia, respectively.

Our results suggest that text customization preferences needs to be complemented by quantitative data from actual reading performance since we found no correlation between the reading performance and the personal choice of the users. Colors shall be taken into consideration by interface developers. Even if people with dyslexia read faster using lower color contrasts than the control group these are not lower than the W3C algorithm.

6. Future Research

On-going experiments address the challenges presented in Section 4. We are currently carrying out more tests with more participants. These tests include (1) further randomization of the position of the texts, (2) longer texts, and (3) the insertion of the texts in frequent reading contexts in the Web such as the Wikipedia layout.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Shadi Abou-Zahra (W3C) for his valuable comments and feedback about this research. We are also indebted to Mari-Carmen Marcos (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) for her assistance with the eye tracker, to Joaquim Llisterri (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) for his help distributing our experiments announcement among experts, and to all the volunteers and people with dyslexia who performed the experiments.

References

1. Al-Wabil, A., Zaphiris, P. & Wilson, S. (2007), 'Web navigation for individuals with dyslexia: an exploratory study', Universal Acess in Human Computer Interaction. Coping with Diversity pp. 593-602.

2. Bradford, J. (2012) Designing web pages for dyslexic readers. Available: http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/mag35.html. Last accessed 20 September 2012.

3. British Dyslexia Association. (2012) Dyslexia style guide. Available: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/. Last accessed 20 September 2012.

4. Gregor, P., Dickinson, A., Macaffer, A. & Andreasen, P. (2003), 'Seeword a personal word processing environment for dyslexic computer users', British Journal of Educational Technology 34(3), 341-355.

5. Gregor, P. & Newell, A. F. (2000), An empirical investigation of ways in which some of the problems encountered by some dyslexics may be alleviated using computer techniques, in Proceedings of the fourth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies, ASSETS 2000, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 85-91.

6. Just, M. & Carpenter, P. (1980), 'A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension', Psychological review 87, 329-354.

7. McCarthy, J. E. & Swierenga, S. J. (2010), 'What we know about dyslexia and web accessibility: a research review', Universal Access in the Information Society 9, 147-152.

8. Pedley, M. (2006), 'Designing for dyslexics: Part 3 of 3'. Available: http://accessites.org/site/2006/11/designing-for-dyslexics-part-3-of-3. Last accessed 20 September 2012.

9. Rello, L. & Baeza-Yates, R. (2012b), 'The presence of english and spanish dyslexia in the web', New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia pp. 1-28.

10. Rello, L., Kanvinde, G. & Baeza-Yates, R. (2012), Layout guidelines for web text and a web service to improve accessibility for dyslexics, in International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2012), ACM Press, Lyon, France.

11. Rello, L. & Marcos, M. (2012), An eye tracking study on text customization for user performance and preference, in 8th edition of the Latin American Web Congress (LA-WEB 2012), IEEE Press, Cartagena, Colombia.

12. World Wide Web Consortium (2008) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Available from: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/ Last accessed 20 October 2012.

Appendix: Description of Figure 1

Fixation duration values in seconds and percentages of the user preference for the people with a without dyslexia. The mostly prefered color pairs by people with dislexia were (ordered from the most favorited to the less favorited): black & yellow; black & creme; blue & white; black & white; blue & yellow; dark brown & light green; brown & dark green and off-black & off-white. The mostly prefered color pairs by people without dislexia were (ordered from the most favorited to the less favorited): black & white; black & yellow; black & creme; off-black & off-white; blue & white; dark brown & light green; brown & dark green and blue & yellow. In terms of performance, the color pairs read by people with dislexia were (ordered from the fastest to the slowest): black & creme; blue & yellow; dark brown & light green, brown & dark green, black & white; off-black & off-white; blue & white and black & yellow. In terms of performance, the color pairs read by people without dislexia were (ordered from the fastest to the slowest): dark brown & light green; black & creme; black & white; black & yellow; blue & yellow; brown & dark green and off-black & off-white.

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Optimal Colors to Improve Readability for People with Dyslexia

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WAI R&D Symposia " Text Customization Home " Proceedings " This paper. This paper is a contribution to the Text Customization for Readability Online Symposium. It was not developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and does not necessarily represent the consensus view of W3C staff, participants, or members.

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Never use #000 or #fff on the web

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Quite some time ago I learned to never use pure black (#000000) on pure white (#ffffff) in web design, as it’s actually much harder to read.
Ian Storm Taylor explains why…
When you put pure black next to a set of meticulously picked colors, the black overpowers everything else. It stands out because it’s not natural. All of the “black” everyday objects around you have some amount of light bouncing off of them, which means they aren’t black, they’re dark gray.

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Accessibility for people with astigmatism

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Accessibility for people with astigmatism

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Do not use pure white text on pure black background

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Author: Level Access

Did you know? Astigmatism is a visual condition where there is a refractive error that impedes the eye from focusing light evenly on the retina. This results in objects appearing to be blurry. According to the World Health Organization, refractive errors (nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia) account for 43% of visual impairments occurring globally.

Why is this important?

There is a myth about white text over black backgrounds being the best color contrast combination for accessibility, but in reality, white text on black backgrounds creates a visual fuzzing effect for people with astigmatism called "halation".

This effect is known to reduce text readability and is particularly bad for people with astigmatism because it can cause terrible headaches.

Users affected around the world

Astigmatism often appears at an early age and increases as we get older. According to a recent study of 2,523 children in the United States between the ages of 5 and 17, more than 28% have astigmatism of 1.0 diopters (D) or greater.

In another study, where more than 11,000 users from the UK who wear glasses participated (both children and adults), the results showed that 47.4% of them had astigmatism of 0.75 D or greater in at least one eye, and 24.1% had the same degree in both eyes.

Almost half of the population has at least 0.5 D of astigmatism, 10% has at least 1 D, and 8% has 1.5 D or more.

Accessibility for astigmatism

Whenever possible, avoid using white text on pure black backgrounds.

Automated contrast-ratio checkers would not detect a problem or any WCAG success criteria failures using this combination of colors, but it will impact end-users. This is another reason why manual testing is still a key component of accessibility testing.

Know your users - astigmatism impacts a wide range of people, young and old. Think and design for everyone. Think accessible.

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Accessibility for People with Astigmatism

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Is your website inaccessible to users with astigmatism? Get design advice so your website is fully accessible to all users, including those with astigmatism.

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The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Accessibility in 2024

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The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Accessibility in 2024

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People are more aware of website accessibility than ever before, but does this mean that mobile app owners also need to comply?

Since mobile apps have become an integral part of everyday life, they now fall under the "places of public accommodation" umbrella, making mobile app accessibility an essential consideration.

If you're not yet familiar with WCAG for mobile apps, now is the best time. Title III of the ADA is what mobile app developers and owners should pay particular attention to as this section prohibits discrimination based on ability.

In this detailed guide, we will carefully unpack everything you need to know about WCAG 2.x for mobile apps, ensuring you can avoid unnecessary lawsuits and brand damage.

Understanding Mobile Accessibility at W3C

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( WCAG ), which all accessibility standards are based on, applies to both web pages and mobile applications, including native and hybrid apps. These guidelines provide detailed instructions on how website and app owners can make their platforms accessible to users with varying disabilities, ensuring they are not discriminated against in day-to-day life.

WCAG forms part of the ) ( Web Accessibility Initiative World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C 2). This initiative was created to ensure that disabled users don't encounter any barriers when browsing websites and engaging with mobile apps, which are now an essential part of our lives.

When Should a Mobile App Be Accessible?

There are several instances when accessibility standards for mobile apps become a legal requirement:

1. Your mobile application is linked to a physical store or location.

2. A customer can only access your business or brand via the web.

3. Your mobile app is used by federal employees.

4. Your app offers advanced communications.

However, even if your app doesn't fall into one of these categories, it's still in your best interest to make it accessible - more on that a bit later.

Regulations that Determine Mobile App Accessibility

The regulations that determine whether and which mobile applications need to be accessible stem from a few different official acts and legal documents, the first of which is the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act.

What does ADA state?

The ADA states that places of public accommodation need to be accessible to everyone - websites and mobile apps are now considered to be places of public accommodation.

Then there's the WCAG, which was mentioned earlier. These general guidelines have been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and it's what most of today's website accessibility standards are based on, including those mentioned in the ADA.

Lastly, there's the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) , which offers telecommunication protection to those with disabilities. It's the CVAA that requires advanced communications to be accessible.

Why Do Mobile Apps Need to Be Accessible?

Now that you have a better understanding of what mobile accessibility is and the laws surrounding it, you might be wondering whether mobile app accessibility is really all that important?

Let's start with the fact that ADA lawsuits are increasing at an alarming rate globally. As accessibility awareness continues to increase, so do the number of demand letters. Avoiding costly and unnecessary lawsuits is one of the first reasons why you should make your mobile app accessible.

Then there's the fact that an accessible app broadens your target audience. And a larger target audience naturally leads to more sales and increased brand loyalty.

Lastly, by making mobile app accessibility a priority, you are also doing your part to provide a better user experience and create a more inclusive society in general.

Who Needs an Accessible Mobile App?

You may not know this but a large percentage of users who have tried to download and engage with your app have a disability. And when they can't use your app in the way they were hoping, they simply delete it, and your brand loses another customer.

The following people require an accessible mobile app:

People with cognitive impairments. This includes conditions such as ADD, dyslexia, and Alzheimer's. These users are either easily distracted, or they cannot follow too many different screens or themes.

Users with visual impairments. This includes color blindness as well as partial and complete blindness. People with visual impairment rely on contrast and visual alternatives to process content.

People with auditory impairments. Anyone with partial or complete loss of hearing won't be able to process all app content if it's inaccessible - alternatives of auditory format are required.

Users with mobility impairments. Users with a mild or severe mobile impairment won't be able to move dexterously or tap with purpose when using an app.

WCAG Principles That Apply to Mobile App Accessibility

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are based on 4 specific principles. It's important to keep each of these principles in mind during the mobile app accessibility process.

Perceivable. Any information, as well as the components of your mobile app, needs to be presented in the most perceivable way possible.

Operable. Any app interface components, including the navigation, needs to be operable, regardless of ability.

Understandable. Any and all information and app functionality must be understandable to all users.

Robust. Lastly, all mobile app content must be robust enough to be easily interpreted by a range of different user agents, including assistive technologies.

Mobile Application Accessibility Checklist

When it comes to making sure your mobile app is accessible to disabled users, there are a few key aspects you should focus on. We've created this handy checklist to ensure you don't miss anything important.

Keep Different Screen Sizes in Mind

When designing any app, it's important to remember that users will have different screen sizes. To accommodate those with smaller screens, you will need to keep information on each page to a minimum, adjust the position of form fields, and use a reasonable content size.

Pay Attention to Color Contrast

Since many mobile apps will be used outdoors and by disabled users, color contrast is an essential accessibility consideration. Text should have a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, while larger text should be at least 3:1.

Simplify App Gestures

Any gestures required to operate a mobile app should be kept as simple as possible to accommodate users with disabilities. Opt for tap or swipe gestures as opposed to more complex ones.

Adjust Tap Target Sizes

If your app displays multiple elements at once, they should be large enough and spaced out so that app users can easily tap them. This includes elements such as buttons.

Make Data Entry Easy

Since text entry can be a tricky and time-consuming task for many users, it's essential to provide easy methods for data entry. For one, you can reduce the amount of text required by adding checkboxes and auto-filling information such as the date and time. Providing autofill and data sharing functionality is also recommended.

Keep Layouts Consistent

Any information that's present across multiple screens on your app should be consistent. Even if you need to place your navigation in a hamburger menu on certain screens, make sure the menu items are in the same order.

How to Ensure Your Mobile Apps are Accessible

Ready to start working on making your mobile application accessible? Let's take a closer look at the most common accessibility issues you should look out for and the solutions available to make WCAG compliance easier.

Mobile App Testing Guidelines

Gian Wild is the person behind the Mobile Site and Native App Testing Methodology that app owners and developers use today. These accessibility testing standards are designed to be used in conjunction with WCAG and on real devices.

The 4 main testing methods that are used to test for mobile app accessibility include:

1. Test on real mobile devices of different sizes

2. Use tests that incorporate assistive technologies

3. Test on responsive windows on a desktop device

4. Test on a desktop device

Here are the general steps that you would follow when testing:

Identify the devices you want to use for testing.

Select the site type and variations. In the case of a native app, you would define app functionality in this step.

Test for general accessibility issues.

Test for mobile-specific accessibility issues.

Test using mobile assistive technology.

Working through these steps and using each of the testing methods outlined above helps cover all your bases, ensuring you identify and fix as many accessibility issues as possible.

Who Can Make Your App Accessible for You?

Whether you don't have the time or the technical know-how to make your mobile application accessible, solutions are available to make this process that much easier.

accessiBe comes highly recommended if you're a mobile app owner that aims to prioritize accessibility this year. The platform works with you to meet the necessary ADA and WCAG compliance guidelines using advanced automated technology.

WCAG

ADA

AODA

Section 508 Compliant

Summary

Web and mobile application accessibility is a major talking point right now and will continue to be as accessibility awareness continues to grow. Not only are mobile app users more aware of their rights, but legal firms are always on the lookout for websites and apps that don't meet the necessary ADA and WCAG requirements.

Mobile app accessibility doesn't need to be complicated, especially now that you have a handy checklist available, know what issues to look out for, and understand the testing methodologies you should use. What's more, tools such as accessiBe are available to speed up and simplify the process.

Don't leave things to chance. Rather take the necessary steps and ensure your mobile app is accessible to all, regardless of ability.

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Mobile App Accessibility: A Comprehensive Guide (2024)

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In this guide about mobile app accessibility we explain how you can make your apps ADA and WCAG compliant in a few simple steps.

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Open vs. closed captions: which is more accessible?

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Open vs. closed captions: which is more accessible?

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Spoiler: closed captions (which can be turned on or off) are more accessible than open captions (visible all the time)

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Video content is a great way to share information. If you host videos on your site, however, you must ensure this information is available to everyone. Many site visitors won't be able to access or learn from audio-visual content. For example:

People who are Deaf or hard of hearing may not be able to hear your video's dialogue.

People with attention disorders may need text along with speech to remain focused.

Many users simply retain written information more easily than spoken words.

That's why the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - the most-trusted global standards for digital accessibility - tell you to include captions for all "synchronized media presentations." To conform to WCAG, you'll need to understand captions. But when you start your research, you'll encounter two terms that are rarely explained: open captions and closed captions. What's the difference?

Here's what every site owner needs to know about the difference between open and closed captions, plus which option supports digital accessibility for the broadest audience.
Related: How Can I Ensure That Multimedia Content Is Accessible?
The Difference Between Open and Closed Captions

Before you learn about open and closed captions, it will help to understand exactly what captions are - and what they're not. Captions don't just convey dialog. Text descriptions of dialog alone are called subtitles.

Captions, on the other hand, provide text descriptions of everything users might need to understand the content. That includes dialog, certainly, but also important sound effects, background music, non-verbal vocalizations (laughter, for instance), explanations of who's speaking, and more.

So what does it mean for captions to be open or closed? Here's the difference between open and closed captions:

Open captions can't be turned off. They're "burned into" the video file and are always visible when the video plays.

Closed captions are optional. Users turn them on or off. They're contained within separate digital files from the video , which means they're only available when media players support closed caption file formats like SubRip (SRT).

At first glance, open captions may appear to be the more accessible option. After all, activating closed captions could present a barrier to some users. On closer inspection, however, open captions create their own set of accessibility issues.

In fact, it's usually the better accessibility practice to choose closed captions whenever possible. Here's why.
Related: How Do "Burned In" Captions Affect Accessibility?
Choosing Between Open and Closed Captions

Closed captions allow users to personalize their experience. That's almost always the best approach to digital accessibility. Every visitor approaches your site with a unique set of skills, abilities, preferences, and needs. No single mode of presentation could possibly offer the best experience to everyone.

Open captions, on the other hand, are fixed. They're static. You render them in your video file just like any other image, so they can't be altered by the user. That leads to a few disadvantages if your goal is to make video content accessible for a diverse user base:

Some users, including hearing neurodiverse viewers, may find captions distracting. To access information conveyed in your video, these people will benefit from being able to turn captions off.

Closed caption files support text in multiple languages, so they make content accessible to multiple language communities at once.

Some viewers, including people with low vision, may prefer large text captions. Only closed captions support user-initiated text resizing.

Screen readers and other assistive technology can rarely access text within images. That includes open captions in video files. But these tools can read closed caption files.

All this argues in favor of closed captions. To improve accessibility with closed captions, however, it's essential to make on/off buttons highly visible and clearly labeled. Poorly designed closed caption buttons may create barriers to access. But with well-designed controls, closed captions are generally the better choice for accessibility.

That said, open captions are better than no captions at all. Most of today's internet media players do support closed captions. Some social media sites don't. If you're sharing video content through platforms that don't support closed captioning, open captions are your only choice - and they can provide conformance with key parts of WCAG.

Open Vs. Closed Captions in WCAG

WCAG is organized into success criteria, each of which addresses a single accessibility issue. Two criteria require the use of captions:

Note that WCAG lists SC 1.2.2, "Captions" as the A level of conformance, while SC 1.2.4, "Captions (Live)" is listed as Level AA. Most accessibility experts recommend Level AA conformance with WCAG, which means it's best to strive to conform to both of these success criteria.

Supporting documents for these Success Criteria offer multiple "sufficient techniques" for conformance. These techniques include both open and closed captions. In other words, WCAG doesn't recommend one over the other.

However, WCAG's description of Technique G93: Providing Open (Always Visible) Captions , states that "the objective of this technique is to provide a way for people who are deaf or otherwise have trouble hearing the dialogue in audio visual material to be able to view the material."

The WCAG guidance on Technique G87: Providing Closed Captions says something similar, but with an important addition: "...without requiring people who are not deaf to watch the captions."

Your videos should be accessible to as many people as possible, including people with and without specific disabilities. As WCAG's description of closed captions suggests, this technology provides the most options to each individual user, which expands your content's reach.

To learn more about multimedia accessibility, download our free Video Accessibility Checklist , a one-page guide for creating accessible videos,

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Open Vs. Closed Captions: Which Is More Accessible?

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Captions make video content more accessible. But should you choose open or closed captions? Find out here.

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How to write text descriptions BBC guide

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How to write text descriptions BBC guide

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How to write text descriptions (alt text) in BBC News articles

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How to write inclusive and accessible text descriptions for all types of images.

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Practical steps to meeting accessibility regulations. Jisc Guide

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Practical steps to meeting accessibility regulations. Jisc Guide

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What you need to know

The Public Sector Bodies (Web and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations were introduced in 2018 and were implemented in a series of deadlines, with the last one in 2020. Jisc provides an overview of the roll out of these in our dedicated accessibility regulations information page, along with additional legal information.

Meeting the expectations of the regulations does not stop on a deadline. It is an on-going process that needs to be monitored and revisited.

Accessibility of your digital estate is not only a legal requirement. Content that meets high standards of accessibility is more user-friendly, understandable, and robust in that it will display well across different browsers and devices.

While many colleges and universities have made great progress, others will find they still have some work to do to meet the expectations of the regulations. This guide contains practical advice and links to useful resources to help you, whatever stage you are at on your accessibility journey.

Accessibility is a cross-organisational issue, so a strategic approach is best. If you would like support from Jisc subject specialists with developing an accessibility strategy, please contact your relationship manager.

Writing accessibility statements

An important part of meeting the regulations is publishing an accessibility statement and you may need more than one. Most organisations start with a statement that covers their public facing website. Some organisations publish a series of separate statements, while others will nest them within an overarching statement. Make sure that it is easy for site visitors to find. A link to an accessibility statement is usually placed in the footer of a website.

It is important to get your statement right. It shows that you understand your responsibilities. It also evidences the work you have done and what you plan to do next. If the Central Digital and Data Office selects your website for monitoring, auditors will look at your statement first. Your accessibility statement(s) should cover your:

Website

Virtual learning environment ()

Third party systems and content you have paid for

Mobile apps created for or by you, and available to the public

The Government Digital Service provides a template for your statement and a sample statement. There are legally compliant ways of describing how accessible your website is, so use the wording provided.

If you haven't reviewed your statement in a few years, note that the sample statement was updated on 2 April 2020 to include a greater level of detail than before (eg listing specific accessibility problems; which of the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria each problem fails on; when you plan to fix these problems). We outlined the changes in our blog post: is your accessibility statement up to date?

Your statement needs to be regularly updated and will change over time. It's a fluid document where you can let people know about your plans. Use it to identify resources you'll need in the coming year. It's good practice to publish a roadmap showing your plans to fix issues.

It's helpful to have a look at some existing statements that are organised in different ways, like these ones:

Testing for accessibility

Before you can write your statement, you need to find out whether there any problems with your digital estate. You need to decide whether you will do it yourself, get someone in, or do a bit of both. The approach you choose will depend on:

Resources - getting a professional audit carries a financial cost, do you have the funds to do it?

Skills - do staff have the skills, or the opportunity to learn, how to audit their own content?

Time - are staff given time to prioritise auditing and professional development in this area?

Jisc members tell us they use a mix of external auditing, going it alone, and a combined approach. If staff know how to test for accessibility themselves, this builds a sustainable approach that will see you into the future as your content inevitably changes.

Whichever route you choose, it's a good idea to have a clear-out of old content that is rarely used. The less you need to work with, the easier your job will be.

If you decide to use an external auditor

The Gov.UK service manual contains a guide to getting an accessibility audit. This contains tips for writing a brief and what to expect.

Do you want to audit for accessibility generally, or for compliance with the regulations (ie, as set out in WCAG 2.1 AA) specifically?

Identify the representative sample of content you want to be checked. Include frequent user journeys through your sites and a range of pages that include different features.

Is the consultant or company able to direct you to solutions in their report, or will you need to contract them further to assist with this?

A blended approach where the consultant or company works with your staff to build skills and help them to fix problems independently will embed sustainability.

Who else have they completed reports for and do they come recommended? Some organisations post their full accessibility reports on their websites, which means you can see what to expect.

Will the consultant write your accessibility statement as part of the job?

Doing it yourself

You don't need to check every page. Select a representative sample that shows the variation in content and functionality of your website. By finding problems in a sample, you should be able to fix issues across the whole website.

Check the content against WCAG 2.1 AA standards. You can use a few automated tests to identify some initial things to look at, but these alone will not uncover all the issues.

WAVE (web accessibility evaluation tool from WebAim) is a suite of evaluation tools that can identify many accessibility errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content.

Axe is another popular accessibility checker for developers. It's a good idea to use more than one automated test as different tools will pick up different things.

Web2Access uses free tools to check your site and can export results into a draft accessibility statement. It cannot access all types of web content, but is a helpful free resource.

There are also paid-for solutions to support testing online content, such as Siteimprove and Silktide.

Guidance from LexDis includes tips for doing quick accessibility checks and for doing a more in-depth accessibility audit.

Test your site with assistive technology (AT). The Accessibility in Government blog provides tips on how to get hold of free AT for testing and includes links to cheat sheets for using common assistive technologies like screenreaders.

Staff development

Testing and making plans to fix problems or build accessibility into new project might lead you to identify a need to develop staff skills. Contact your Jisc relationship manager to find out about direct training and support available, from strategic visioning workshops to awareness-raising short courses.

You'll also find news about training and events in Jisc's accessibility community group.

Here are some free courses and resources to investigate. More advanced technical training is also available from a range of suppliers.

Prioritising and planning

Start with things that will have the greatest impact. Look for the most serious accessibility errors that are easiest to fix. Prioritise your most frequent user journeys and essential systems. It's generally more sustainable to focus your efforts on new content. Note that some content is exempt from the regulations.

Getting management buy-in and ensuring staff take ownership of areas to be tested and fixed is key. This Jisc blog post, accessibility: the secret to success is organisational vision and buy-in, explains the process.

It's useful to identify a quick win - something you can achieve in a short timeframe that will build momentum and motivation. It could be something like ensuring any Wordpress blogs staff use are in accessibility-ready themes1, or create accessible, branded Word and PowerPoint templates2 for staff to use.

If you suspect that some remediation may be cost-prohibitive, you could have a case to make a claim of disproportionate burden. If you decide not to fix something due to disproportionate burden, you will need to be able to evidence how and why you came to that decision and it needs to be done on the basis of cost.

Dealing with third party content and systems

You will need to link to the accessibility statements of all the third party content and systems you have paid for, and that staff and students access through a browser. If you have customised third party products, or are unsure how current the accessibility information provided is, we would recommend testing it yourself.

To help find accessibility information on products, the Jisc accessibility community worked with accessibility specialists, searchBOX to create a crowd-sourcing approach to collating third party accessibility statements, resulting in a free third party accessibility database hosted by textBOX.

If suppliers do not provide a statement, you may need to write one for the product you paid for. Request that your procurement team embeds a need for accessibility statements and accessible content in procurement guidance. Sometimes suppliers will provide you with a voluntary product accessibility template (VPAT)3. This is worded differently to UK accessibility statements, but should provide the detail required.

For libraries, Jisc Collections asks suppliers for links to their accessibility statements which are included in catalogues. ASPIRE encourages publishers to provide good quality accessibility statements and meet high standards of accessibility.

Describing images

Image description depends on context. What is an image conveying? If it is purely decorative, label it as such. If it contains useful information, you need to provide a text description. If the image is complex, consult the lecturer to ensure you have got the meaning correctly. Helpful resources include:

Dealing with video

Pre-recorded video published online on or after 23 September 2020 comes within scope of the accessibility regulations. Accessibility guidelines define accessible video4 as having:

Subtitles/captions

A transcript

Audio description

A media player that enables users to control using keyboard commands

No flashing images or background distractions

The impact of the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 means many colleges and universities in Scotland will also provide video content of important information in British Sign Language.

There are a few ways to create subtitles and the right one for you will depend on your learning platform and staff resource. One of the easiest is YouTube which automates subtitle content that you can edit for accuracy. You can also use Stream to subtitle content and produce an automated transcript. Otter.ai is an easy to use app that creates editable transcripts with punctuation, and it detects new speakers. The demand for captions and transcripts has seen the emergence of specialist providers such as Caption.Ed and Verbit.ai.

Given the range of approaches and complexity often involved in quality assuring captions and transcriptions in education, we have created a dedicated captioning guide.

Live content isn't covered as strictly by the accessibility regulations, but if there is a deaf student on an online course, it would be a reasonable adjustment in line with the Equality Act 2010 to provide live remote captioning/note-taking or a BSL/English interpreter during classes. For some students the cost of this could be covered by Disabled Students Allowance.

design, functionality and gatekeeping

There are two aspects to virtual learning environment () accessibility: the platform itself and the content uploaded to it. The first is similar to guidelines for web accessibility and you can use the government sample accessibility statement as a template for your VLE accessibility statement.

Chapter four of Policy Connect's accessible VLEs report provides a strategic 'how-to' guide to implementation, with the objective of using the requirement for digital improvements to make education and learning better for all students.

As many members of staff and students can upload content, the quality can be hard to monitor. How will you ensure only accessible and good quality content is uploaded?

Some options:

Provide mandatory, accessibly designed templates

Provide checklists for staff to use before uploading

Share simple guides like SCULPT to remind lecturers of key accessibility elements

Embed accessibility into staff and student training - it's about good digital skills

Encourage lecturers to design online materials that support executive function5

Recognise good practice and offer to work collaboratively with departments

Involve students to know what you're doing works for them

Provide support with specialist tasks like subtitling and image description

You could form working groups to help shape guidance for subject specific content

Accessible documents

Accessible documents and resources are simply correctly constructed documents. They look good, display consistently across platforms and devices, and offer students flexibility - eg, they can use assistive technology to access the content, or simply increase the font size without the formatting going all over the place.

Detailed guidance can be found on the LexDis guide to accessible documents, but here are some characteristics of accessible content. Note: Word, Excel and PowerPoint all have built-in accessibility checkers.

Word documents

Use headings and styles to structure the document. Structure hierarchically: heading 1 for the title/main heading, heading 2 for subheadings and so on.

Use a sans serif font like Arial and avoid text smaller than point 12 (regulations don't specify font size, but this is generally good practice).

Align text to left. Do not justify as this creates uneven gaps between words which as well as looking bad, become huge and disorientating when text is magnified. On the topic of spacing, you do not need a double space after a full stop, this is a hangover from manual typewriting, not an accessibility practice.

Ensure colour has good contrast e.g. light on dark. Do not rely on colour to convey meaning.

Use plain English. When providing instructions, use active language, not passive, eg, "contact learning support..." rather than "students are advised to make contact with learning support..." Avoid metaphors and culturally specific references in information. Be clear, say what you mean.

Use meaningful hyperlinks so that when read by a screen reader, the link makes sense, eg, use "learn about meaningful hyperlinks" - linking the whole action being described - rather than "Click here to learn about meaningful hyperlinks".

Provide alternative text for images (we'll consider this specifically later in the guide).

Use the Word accessibility checker to proof your document.

As it is such a widely used format, WebAIM offers a four week course on Word accessibility.

PowerPoint

Ensure there is good colour contrast between text and background.

Many of the features of accessible Word documents are relevant here too, eg, alignment, alt text, font style, meaningful hyperlinks.

Avoid cluttering a slide with too much text - you can use the Notes field to expand on detail.

Aim to use as large a font size as possible, ideally size 24 and avoid using all caps in text.

Use the PowerPoint Accessibility Checker to proof your slides and check the items on each slide are in the correct reading order.

PDF

Ensuring PDFs are accessible requires a bit more effort and knowledge. Adobe Acrobat has an accessibility checker and Adobe also has guidance on creating accessible pdfs. Our popular online clinic with Adobe takes you through the practical elements of creating accessible PDFs.

The regulations state that pdfs published before 23 September 2018 do not have to be fixed, unless they contain essential information. Remember that you're still legally required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people when they're needed though, for example by providing the information a disabled student needs in another, more accessible format.

Downloadable posters

Don't underestimate the attention-grabbing potential of a great poster to remind staff of the needs of their end users. Here are some that you can use under a Creative Commons licence.

They all provide quick tips to creating accessible content.

Footnotes

Explore more on this topic

Accessibility

Legal

Standards and policies

About the author

Subject specialist: strategy (accessibility), Jisc

I develop and lead on projects focused on accessibility, assistive technology, and inclusive practice in UK further and higher education and research. My experience prior to joining Jisc includes implementing inclusiveness through the application of technology in varied contexts within schools, further, and higher education.

With colleagues, I facilitate Jisc's lively and supportive accessibility and assistive technology communities. In addition to providing advice and guidance, I deliver direct consultancy and training, including strategically focused visioning workshops which help education providers to create bespoke roadmaps towards accessibility. I represent Jisc on relevant policy engagements, eg at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Assistive Technology.

07468 724233

@KellieMote

kellie.mote@jisc.ac.uk

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Practical steps to meeting accessibility regulations

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What you need to knowThe Public Sector Bodies (Web and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations were introduced in 2018 and were implemented in a series of deadlines, with the last one in 2020. Jisc provides an overview of the roll out of these in our dedicated accessibility regulations information page, along with additional legal information.

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Should accessibility be on your institution’s risk register? Jisc Blog

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Should accessibility be on your institution’s risk register? Jisc Blog

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Short blog article outlines the risks for an institution of not ensuring their digital content is accessible.

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Accessibility, assistive technology and inclusive practice

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Since they came into force in 2019 The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (PSBAR)) have been effective in highlighting the need to treat accessibility as a serious responsibility. These regulations have reinforced the obligation to make reasonable adjustments to digital content that the Equality Act 2010 established.

The transparency and scrutiny that publishing an accessibility statement requires has raised awareness of the barriers that many with accessibility face when engaging with public sector bodies.

In education the PSBAR have provided the opportunity to revisit how someone with accessibility needs interacts with a college or university when entering into the process of applying to become a student. It also challenges us to rethink the student (and staff) experience for those with accessibility needs. In particular, the regulations have emphasised the significance of incorporating "inclusive design" from the outset when planning the introduction of systems and processes that learners and others are required to engage with.

Whole institution approach and leadership buy-in

The regulations require that "browser delivered" content meets internationally recognised accessibility standards ( ). This includes public facing web content as well as "internal only" content such as teaching and learning materials.

No one will say that this is easy.

The changes needed to achieve it are across the institution and "building the plane as you fly it" is an analogy that comes to mind. Systems can't just be stopped and be rebuilt. Without a whole institution approach great work to support learners in one area can be undermined by something unanticipated and unpredicted. The learner with accessibility needs may be the one to experience the barriers first.

Who ultimately has responsibility for the accessible and inclusive student or staff experience is not always easy to pin down. In dealing with a number of institutions since the accessibility regulations came into force in 2019 our experience is that many institutions have struggled to get buy-in across the organisation. However, when there is strong leadership backing for whole organisation change in terms of accessibility and inclusion, progress can be rapid and effective.

We don't like to think of the confrontational side. Supporting those with accessibility needs is after all something that we all know is the right thing to do.

Nevertheless, motivation also comes from the risks that could result from a discrimination claim by someone disadvantaged by systems and information that do not meet accessibility standards.

I have listed below three areas of risk that I think need to be addressed in education. All of these may be very low risk in the education context, but the consequences could be very damaging for an institution.

The areas of risks for an education institution (or drivers) include:

EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) scrutiny following a report and monitoring by CDDO (Central Digital and Data Office). CDDO are the regulator in terms of the accessibility regulations. Recently we have seen a marked increase in audits by CDDO of education institutions in particular.

A claim of discrimination - The accessibility regulations make it more straightforward to establish a link between inaccessible content and discrimination. The regulations assist someone who will want to establish causation in a discrimination claim because the regulations state that "... failure to comply with the accessibility requirement is to be treated as a failure to make a reasonable adjustment.". The risk for an education institution is that an individual learner who has invested in and then failed a course, for example, can now more easily link learning content that does not meet accessibility standards to discrimination.

Reputational damage - This may result from 1 or 2 above or from commentary on social media, for example, references to learning content not meeting accessibility standards and to some extent is self-explanatory.

All three are undesirable for an education institution even where there are no publicly disclosed large headline fines or penalties for breach of the accessibility regulations as such.

Risk register

It is up to each individual education institution to identify and take into account what it considers risks. Education institutions deal with risk management all of the time and have well established protocols to assess and to mitigate risk. Because accessibility compliance can be considered a business risk and needs ongoing reviewing and monitoring, including accessibility compliance in the corporate risk register is recognised by a number of education providers to be a pragmatic way forward.

Let us know what you think. Is accessibility compliance on your institutions risk register? Would that be a step in the right direction for your college or university?

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Should accessibility be on your institution's risk register? - Accessibility, assistive technology and inclusive practice

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Including accessibility in your risk register could be a useful strategy to raise awareness and achieve leadership buy-in. Explore what's involved to decide if it's right for you.

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‘Without these tools, I’d be lost’: how generative AI aids in accessibility

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‘Without these tools, I’d be lost’: how generative AI aids in accessibility

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An article which describes how various generative AI tools can help people with disabilities and neurodivergent people in particular

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Jisc blog: Discussing AI for Accessibility in FE

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Jisc blog: Discussing AI for Accessibility in FE

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For this month's AI in FE community meetups we held two sessions, both focused around AI for Accessibility and were joined by members of over 30 FE institutions from across the UK.

We began with some scene setting discussing the existing role AI has played in key assistive technologies and the developing role of generative AI in supporting a range of needs.

Some examples included:

We then had discussion led by members of Jisc's Advice team specialising in Accessibility and breakout discussions around the question "What do we need to support the use of AI for accessibility?" .

Key themes emerged highlighting the potential for AI to enhance accessibility, and several members had experience with particular AI tools around accessibility:

is an AI tool mentioned which allows users to practice languages and social skills.

TeacherMatic for content generation was brought up as the tool is user friendly and can help remove the barrier of prompting for users new to generative AI.

chatbot was mentioned as being particularly helpful to neurodivergent users.

Though there is a huge amount of potential and positivity in this area there was also discussion around some of the key barriers to exploring AI for accessibility in FE at this time which are collated below:

Age restrictions

Age restrictions around generative AI tools were raised as a particular barrier to exploring AI to support learners as the majority of tools require that users are 18+ or 13+ with a parent or guardians' permission. Some members are exploring introducing agreements at the enrolment stage to obtain parental permission.

Cost and digital equity

Alongside the lack of tools for younger users it was raised that there are few options which are available to try for free. Further, there is a question of who incurs the cost of trying out tools where there are only paid options, whether this is up to individuals or institutions.

Some free options were discussed including and the basic access to Microsoft Copilo t (not 365 copilot/ institutionally licensed versions) however there are potential data privacy issues which users need to be aware of and consent to.

Academic misconduct

Concerns around academic misconduct were discussed and how to discern the line between appropriate use of AI tools to assist, for instance supporting with structure or creating transcripts, and the inappropriate use of tools to complete larger portions of work.

was mentioned in particular as it is a tool long used for grammar and structuring assistance by learners which now has incorporated generative AI features.

There was interesting discussion around how learners should cite their use of AI, and what cases require citation. Spelling and grammar checkers were largely agreed not to require citation but more involved uses that involve generating new text were.

In some cases, learners are encouraged to provide evidence of their AI use and a few methods were suggested to make this easier on the learner - including taking screen recordings of conversations with chatbots and making use of the share features many tools offer to create a link to a copy of the chat.

It was recognised though that this can put an additional burden on learners, particularly at stressful times when they are submitting assignments. This could be confusing too for students who have used assistive tools for a long time without requiring their use to be cited.

Regarding guidance on referencing a couple of resources were recommended by members:

Sharing reviews of tools

Attendees were keen to see more sharing of other college's experiences of different AI tools and services.

This is an area with a lot of ongoing discussion and considerations, so we wrapped up by sharing a selection of further reading for those interested in exploring AI and accessibility further :

Next month we'll be having a practice sharing session and Bryony Evett from Coleg sir gar will be sharing their institution's AI approach.

Sessions will be: Tuesday 21st May, 12.30-13.30pm & Thursday 23rd May, 4.00-5.00pm
If you are already registered from April's sessions, there is no need to re-register and you will receive the invitations for the May sessions soon.

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Discussing AI for Accessibility in FE - Artificial intelligence

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For this month's AI in FE community meetups we held two sessions, both focused around AI for Accessibility and were joined by members of over 30 FE institutions from across the UK. We began with some scene setting discussing the existing role AI has played in key assistive technologies and the developing role of generative [...]

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How to create effective listening environments for neurodiverse, international and deaf students

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How to create effective listening environments for neurodiverse, international and deaf students

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THE article

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In recent years, academics have had to think a lot about how to adapt teaching to meet students' learning needs. This has led to some positive change; we've created face-to-face, online and hybrid learning environments using a combination of approaches. What we may have thought less about is whether the inclusive environments we have created are accessible to our students.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency 2023 report data show that in 2021-22 there were 451,580 students with a known disability and 679,970 international students in UK higher education institutions. It also showed that there were 532,460 students enrolled on UK courses accessed outside the UK. The data reflect the diversity of our student cohorts, all of whom will have varied cognitive, cultural and linguistic learning needs.

Issues that students face with listening

Evidence shows that putting effort into listening affects cognitive load, the quantity of information that working memory can hold at any given time. The more effort we put into listening, the greater the effect on cognition. If our brains are working too hard to hear what is said, we will find it more difficult to retain information. As educators, if we create an environment where listening is effortful for our learners, be it face-to-face, hybrid or online, we are limiting access to knowledge and subsequently affecting attainment. If we consider the increased listening effort required by neurodiverse students, those with hearing loss or students learning in a second or third language, we can start to realise how important effective listening environments are. If we want to plug the attainment gap, we need to consider access to language for all kinds of students.

What we did to create more effective listening environments

In my role as a lecturer in deaf education, ensuring that learning is inclusive and accessible has always been central to my teaching. As a programme team, we have shared our expertise on the University of Manchester's initial teacher training (ITT) primary postgraduate certificate in education programme to support trainees' understanding of how to create accessible listening and learning environments to meet the diverse needs of deaf children in primary schools. We teach trainees about creating acoustically friendly environments, capitalising on technology and ensuring that deaf children who access the curriculum through speaking and listening can do so effectively.

To meet the needs of colleagues in academia, we condensed our lecture for ITT into a short online continued professional development (CPD) session about creating effective listening environments. We have added this to the institute for teaching and learning's online CPD platform to encourage academics to take small actions to adapt their teaching and learning environments to ensure that their spoken language content is accessible to all students. The CPD session included advice on making small tweaks to learning environments that would not affect preferred pedagogical practices but could significantly improve access.

Make the classroom inclusive

Realise that language underpins learning. If you want your students to remember what you've taught them, it's helpful if they can clearly hear what you've said to them! Any restrictions to accessing language will have a negative impact on learning and attainment.

Consider what teaching strategies you use to support learning and how these affect access and the learning environment. For example:

Q&A sessions: it's great if we can manage the space so that one person speaks at a time, but remember that a student with hearing loss might not hear any spoken language that comes from more than 1.5m from them (because of the limitations of hearing aids' microphones). Recasting (repeating what a student says but adding in more detailed information to aid learning) and repeating comments ensure that everyone hears input.

Group discussions: these can create powerful teaching and learning opportunities, but the noise generated can be overwhelming for neurodiverse learners and those with hearing loss. Can you create breakout spaces for those who require a quieter space? Asking students to add discussion points to Menti or Padlet ensures that key information isn't lost for learners.

Manage acoustics

One of the easiest ways to improve acoustics is to manage noise. In lecture theatres, or even in smaller learning spaces, students with difficulty hearing or listening will typically position themselves close to the front. By moving away from the front of the room, you reduce access to your voice. Think about:

Positioning: speak only when you are at the front of the room, or, if you move around, stand still when you speak. This allows students to locate you and support their listening with speech reading (reading lips and getting visual cues from body language and gestures).

The inverse square law (in other words - sound gets quieter as it travels away from you): some students avoid sitting at the front, for example, those who struggle with social interactions or anxiety, so their access to your voice (and thus your teaching) is reduced. Raising your voice above typical speaking levels is unsustainable and distorts it.

Capitalising on the technology that's available in most teaching spaces. Use soundfield systems, sound systems that can be installed in teaching spaces or in-built lecture theatre mics to ensure a consistent sound level, to ensure that your speech reaches all students (and you don't need time off work due to voice strain).

Using assistive learning devices (ALDs): for deaf students, using ALDs can overcome some of the limitations of hearing aids. Deaf students who access learning through spoken language need you to use the technology well, so if they ask you to wear an ALD, please put it on.

Managing internal and external noise that competes with your voice

Close doors and windows to block out external noise

Turn off any unused equipment to reduce internal noise

Manage behaviour: It's difficult to ask adult students to not talk while you're speaking, but letting students know that this is to ensure access to all demonstrates your commitment to individual learning needs and helps bring others on board (no student wants to be the one who prevents someone else from learning).

Excellence needs to be accessible. No matter how good you are, if students can't access your content, then learning opportunities are lost. Working to create an effective listening environment gives students access to your excellent content. To close the attainment gap, consider the influence of your learning environment on listening effort, cognitive load and cognitive fatigue. Remember that small adaptations can make a substantial difference in supporting the diverse learning needs of all students.
Lindsey Jones is a lecturer in deaf education at the University of Manchester. If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter.

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How to create effective listening environments for neurodiverse, international and deaf students

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It's important to consider the influence of your learning environment on listening effort, cognitive load and cognitive fatigue. Here are some tips

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convert PDFs and images to searchable, exportable, and machine readable text.

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convert PDFs and images to searchable, exportable, and machine readable text.

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Convert images and PDFs to LaTeX, DOCX, Overleaf, Markdown, Excel, ChemDraw and more, with our AI-powered document conversion technology.

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Complex images - making sense for accessibility

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Complex images - making sense for accessibility

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Resource is aimed at Further and Higher Education institutions in the UK.

It is divided into 5 sections - Welcome, Background, Core principles, Recommendations and Suggested workflows.

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Effortlessly generate descriptive alt text for your images using our AI-powered tool. Improve accessibility and SEO without a hassle.

Image alt text, often referred to simply as "alt text," is a descriptive attribute added to HTML code to provide a textual description of an image on a web page. Alt text serves two primary purposes: accessibility and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Accessibility. Alt text is vital for making web content accessible to individuals with visual impairments or those who use screen readers. When an image has alt text, the screen reader reads the text aloud, enabling users to understand the image's content and context. Alt text ensures that people who cannot see the image can still comprehend the information it conveys, making websites more inclusive.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Alt text also plays a role in optimizing web content for search engines. Search engines like Google cannot interpret images like humans can. Alt text provides a textual description that helps search engines understand the image's content. When images have relevant and descriptive alt text, they can be indexed and appear in image search results, improving the website's overall visibility and potentially driving more organic traffic.

In essence, image alt text serves as a bridge between the visual content of images and the digital interpretation required by accessibility tools and search engines. Writing informative and concise alt text is essential to provide equal access to information and enhance a website's accessibility and SEO efforts.

Ahrefs' Image Alt Text Generator uses a language model that learns patterns, grammar, and vocabulary from large amounts of text data - then uses that knowledge to generate human-like text based on a given prompt or input. The generated text combines both the model's learned information and its understanding of the input.

Powered by Ahrefs

Everything you need to rank higher & get more traffic.

© 2023 Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. (201227417H) 16 Raffles Quay, #33-03 Hong Leong Building, Singapore 048581

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Effortlessly generate descriptive alt text for your images using our AI-powered tool. Improve accessibility and SEO without a hassle.

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How do we write alternative text for images in education?

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Descriptions of images in online documents help all readers – not just those with vision impairment – to fully understand the photograph, chart or graph and make the information accessible

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Autism Accessibility Guidelines research project

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Autism Accessibility Guidelines research project

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Creating an inclusive learning environment

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Creating an inclusive learning environment

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Remember, it's likely that there'll be students with a range of disabilities and conditions (disclosed and undisclosed) of different genders, ages and religions.

Accessibility of resources

Materials available prior to teaching sessions: all students, including those with a modified assessment provision, benefit from being able to access teaching materials in advance of a session. The Teaching and Learning Committee (May 2008 and reviewed in January 2014) agreed that materials should be made available electronically at a minimum of 48 hours in advance of a session. The minimum standard to be adopted includes the following:

The outline and scope of a session

Preparatory reading

Key teaching materials e.g. PowerPoint presentations, support documentation, podcasts etc. should be uploaded in advance of the teaching session

This should be available a minimum of 48 hours before the teaching session, but a period of 7 days before the teaching session is recommended

All teaching materials must conform to the University's guidance on copyright and intellectual property rights

You can achieve this by posting materials for sessions on the DLE. We know that in some circumstances it may not be possible to provide all materials in advance and academic staff may use their professional judgement; however this needs to be weighed against our obligation under the Equalities Act (2010) to make reasonable adjustments to prevent unfair treatment and to achieve equal opportunities for all our students.

Research has shown that posting of lecture materials in advance of the lecture does not have an impact on attendance. To view Babb & Ross (2009), go to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131508002029. Their findings suggest that attendance and participation are both improved by having slides available to students before classes.

By providing materials in advance of your teaching sessions, you'll help cater to individual working styles. You should also consider how you present your information e.g. the style of paper you're using, font and clarity of text.

Students with a Student Support Document will be able to record lectures and they'll sign a copyright declaration as part of their enrolment process.

Inclusive teaching environments and method

Some conditions are variable and can be affected by the time of day, medication or temperature; this may occasionally result in absences.

Any comments or questions from the group should be repeated by the tutor so that no information is missed.

Try and face the class as much as possible and avoid turning away to write while speaking.

Use microphones in lecture theatres wherever possible as Loop systems (for hearing impaired students) are dependent on this.

Verbalise any information you write, draw or show your class.

Write new terminology or unfamiliar names on the board.

Be mindful that some students may need to go out or have a break during sessions.

Encourage ground rules e.g. only one person can speak at a time.

Where possible give lists of specialist words with meanings.

Group work

Working well within a group is considered a key graduate skill but it's one that many students can find difficult to master. The following points can help make this learning process easier:

Encourage group members to be open about any disabilities or specific learning difficulties they have and the implications that these may have for their group work.

Group arrangements sometimes require formal allocation to ensure that students don't get left out.

Some groups may also need assistance with the allocation of roles.

Some groups may require a higher degree of informal supervision than others.

Suggest having a clear point of contact throughout the tasks, and a process for students to discuss concerns relating to disability and the group work.

Presentations

Please be mindful that some students may need reasonable adjustments due to a disability, providing the learning outcomes can be maintained.

Consider the environment that the student is presenting in, particularly for students with hearing impairments, visual impairments, speech and language difficulties or social phobias. An example of a reasonable adjustment would be to allow a student to present to a smaller group or solely to the tutor(s) involved.

Placements

If you're a placement tutor, you should have a pre-placement discussion with your students regarding placement issues e.g. location, accessibility, health and safety and other reasonable adjustments.

Placement tutors, staff and students can also liaise with Disability Services for further advice, information and guidance if needed.

Occasionally an enabler may be required to support a student on a placement. The placement tutor should liaise with Disability Services at an early stage to ensure appropriate support can be arranged.

Fieldwork and off campus activities

As a module leader you should discuss fieldwork content and off campus activities with students to establish any support requirements, if an enabler is needed, appropriate transport and health and safety.

Module leaders can then liaise with Disability Services if appropriate.

Enabling and study skills support

Some students may be receiving support which can include enabling (note taking, mentoring etc), learning support and communication support workers. Take a look at the University's enabling guidelines to find out more.

Modified assessment provision - for exams and in-class tests

Some students are recommended assessment provisions such as additional time or use of a smaller or separate room. These provisions are detailed on their Student Support Document as well as being recorded on Unit-E.

For in-class assessments, students can expect modified assessment provision (such as extra time) in line with those recommended in formal examination. However there may be some in-class assessments and environments where these modifications may not be appropriate or necessary. The module leader should discuss the format or style of the in-class assessment with the student in order to determine appropriate provision in good time. Please note that responsibility for modified in-class assessments rests with the department (module leader) concerned.

Workshops, labs and studios

We recommend that you consider any health and safety requirements.

Please be mindful that some students may need reasonable adjustments due to a disability, providing the learning outcomes can be maintained.

Some students may require consideration regarding seating e.g. requiring a specific seat in a lab which is close to an exit or in a quieter area.

Some students may require additional space to work or an extra seat for an enabler.

Alternative assessment

Due to their disability, some students may be unable to complete standard assessments. In these cases an alternative assessment is usually explored through the case conference process.

Know your University

Know what other information, advice and guidance is available to support your students, such as counselling, Library Special Support Services, SU Advice and Welfare, Chaplaincy, Disability Services and Learning Development.

Students who have a Student Support Document will be contacted by Library Special Support Services to discuss the support that they can offer.

More specific information about teaching requirements will be linked to the Student Support Document.

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Creating an inclusive learning environment

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Remember, it's likely that there'll be students with a range of disabilities and conditions (disclosed and undisclosed) of different genders, ages and religions. Materials available prior to teaching sessions: all students, including those with a modified assessment provision, benefit from being able to access teaching materials in advance of a session.

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Dr Denise Robinson YouTube channel on technology for users with visual impairment

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Dr Denise Robinson YouTube channel on technology for users with visual impairment

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blind low vision access technology education learn teach robinson techvision accessibility "tech tricks" "keyboard commands" hotkeys "key board" tutorials "d...

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Learn how to use technology and other blind skills for blind/low vision to access education and your world .....only using keyboard commands

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Why use Microsoft Word with blind math students?

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Why use Microsoft Word with blind math students?

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How do you write mathematical documents like problem sets, quizzes, and tests so that a student that is blind will be able to use a screenreader to hear the documents? There are many (many!) screenreaders now, and this is always a bit of a moving target, but the safest bet for mainstream math courses seems to be to use Microsoft Word and either the built-in Microsoft Equation Editor or the add-in MathType.

Last fall I performed a little experiment. I took the exact same problem set of three fairly simple math problems and had a screenreader (in this case, Microsoft Narrator) try to read the problems in Word, in a PDF format, and in Blackboard.

The video " Equations and Screenreaders with Word, PDF, and Blackboard " will show you what it is like to navigate (or try to navigate) these three formats using the Microsoft Narrator screenreader.

When teaching online, in-person, hybrid, or whatever, I will provide PDF files for sighted students because the formatting tends to stay more consistent and the files will open on their screens and be printable even if they don't have Microsoft Word. But I always create the problem sets and quizzes in Word first so that I have a file format that is compatible with screenreaders in the event that I have a student that is blind or visually impaired. If I have such a student in class, I just provide all the files in both PDF and Word formats.

Screenreaders will read LaTeX, but ... they read the actual LaTeX code, they do not "interpret" the LaTeX as the readable or spoken math. If you are teaching blind students who will go on to advanced mathematics, physics, engineering, etc, it is probably the right choice to just teach them to write and interpret LaTeX code so that they can be literate in the writing techniques of advanced mathematics. However, if you are teaching courses where 90% of the students are not going on to these careers, I think it places an unfair burden on the blind student to adapt to LaTeX when you could just as easily make a document that is screenreader compatible.

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Why use Microsoft Word with blind math students? - Busynessgirl

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How do you write mathematical documents like problem sets, quizzes, and tests so that a student that is blind will be able to use a screenreader to hear the documents? There are many (many!) screenreaders now, and this is always a bit of a moving target, but the safest bet for mainstream math courses seems [...]

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Accessible Math Editor: Word - Perkins School for the Blind

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A robust, simple math editor for educators to create accessible math worksheets for students to use with a screen reader or screen reader paired with a braille display!

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Introduction of the Jisc accessibility community maths working group

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Presentation

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The plan

1 What is the problem?

1.1 Could we solve it by…?

1.2 Computers and maths

1.3 From retrofitting to inclusive design?

1.4 Could we convert the LaTeX?

1.5 Could we convert the mathematicians?!

2 What do we convert to?

3 How do we get started?

3.1 Word 365: Accessibility checker + Equation editor

3.2 Sounds solved to me?

3.3 Web: WCAG 2.1 AA + MathJax!

3.4 Moodle support throughout!

3.5 Supporting mathematicians

4 Thanks for listening and watching

4.1 Mathematical diagrams, software and interactive/dynamic elements including e-assessment

Getting started with accessible maths

The plan

What is the problem?

What to we convert to?

How do we get started?

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Emma Cliffe, Skills Centre: MASH, University of Bath. JISC Accessibility drop-in clinic, June 2022

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Special symbols and their descriptions

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discussion

summary

practice

problems

resources

Reference

space & time, mechanics, thermal physics, waves & optics, electricity & magnetism, modern physics, mathematics, greek alphabet, astronomy, music

Style sheet

These are the conventions used in this book.

Vector quantities (F, g, v) are written in a bold, serif font - including vector quantities written with Greek symbols (α, τ, ω).

Scalar quantities (m, K, t) and scalar magnitudes of vector quantities (F, g, v) are written in an italic, serif font - except for Greek symbols (α, τ, ω), which use a roman serif font.

Mathematical symbols use a roman, serif font (½, +, √, cos) - except when they are applied to calculations with units.

Units are written with a roman, sans-serif font (m, N, ℃) as are mathematical operations with numbers and units (7 kg × 10 m/s ÷ 3 s = 23.3 N).

Symbols for physical quantities and their international units

v, c

wave speed

m/s

meter per second

L
level

dB, dNp

decibel, decineper

ψ( r, t), ψ(r)φ(t)

wave function

unitless

Miscellaneous symbols

symbol

description

+

plus, add, positive

−

minus, subtract, negative

±

uncertainty, error, plus-minus

·

multiply, dot, dot product, scalar product

×

multiply, cross, cross product, vector product

÷, /

divide

x ²
square

x ³
cube

√

square root, root, radical

∛

cube root

¹ x, x−1

invert, reciprocal

=

equal to, equality

≈

approximately equal to

∝

proportional to

≠

not equal to, inequality

~

on the order of, tilde

<

less than

>

greater than

≤

less than or equal to

≥

greater than or equal to

⇒, ⇐

logical implication

⇔

logical equivalence

...

and so on, ellipsis

∴

therefore

f( x)

function

sin

sine

cos

cosine

tan

tangent

sinh

hyperbolic sine

cosh

hyperbolic cosine

tanh

hyperbolic tangent

x̂
unit vector, hat, circumflex

∥

parallel

⟂

perpendicular

x
mean, average, antiparticle, bar, overline

x̃
median, supersymetric particle, tilde

⟨⟩

time average, ensemble average, bracket

p( x)

probability distribution, probability density function

∆

increment, change, delta

d
differential, d

∂

partial differential, d partial

∇

gradient, del

∇·

divergence, div, del dot

∇×

curl, del cross

∇ ²

laplacian, del squared

∑

summation, sigma

∫

integral

∬

double integral

∭

triple integral

∮

contour integral

∯

surface integral

∰

volume integral

∞

infinity

ℵ ₀

transfinite number, aleph null

letter

English name

letter

English name

symbol

celestial body

symbol

constellation

symbol

name

♭

flat, semitone lower

♮

natural, no semitone adjustment

♯

sharp, semitone higher

discussion

summary

practice

problems

resources

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Special Symbols - The Physics Hypertextbook

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discussion summary practice problems resources space & time, mechanics, thermal physics, waves & optics, electricity & magnetism, modern physics, mathematics, greek alphabet, astronomy, music These are the conventions used in this book. Vector quantities (F, g, v) are written in a bold, serif font - including vector quantities written with Greek symbols (α, τ, ω).

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Approaches to accessible mathematical text

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Approaches to accessible mathematical text

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The following are notes on various approaches to the problem of producing mathematical text online, in a way which is accessible to folk with one or other visual impairment. The motivating use-case is that of getting maths-heavy lecture notes online, and the discussion is addressed to people with at least some familiarity with LaTeX.

To some extent we're focusing on readers with moderate visual impairements here. Students with major impairments will probably come to us via the institution's disability office, who can start a conversation about more customised accommodations. But there's a lot more to 'visual impairment' than 'cannot see', and we shouldn't zero in on screen readers as the only relevant technology (though I do repeatedly mention them below). We also want to support students with impairments such as dyslexia, for example, where the impairment isn't strictly visual, but might be helped by being able to manipulate the text in some way. This is why Word (or Powerpoint) documents are an unexpectedly good solution to the accessibility problem: there are various ways that users can modify a Word document to make it more readable to them, personally. It's possible to use pandoc (below) to turn LaTeX into Word, with wildly variable results; I'm not going to discuss that further below, but it illustrates that having a malleable document can be a strong advantage to a user.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that there is a single best answer here. None of the three options below is unequivocally the best, nor obviously bad.

The three approaches below are:

LaTeX to EPUB: I think this is probably the best solution in principle - that is, this is the route that I think you should use - and though it's not trivial, it's reasonably straightforward in practice, and seems to work OK.

Markdown to HTML: this starts from a different place, but if you have a relatively simple document, then this will produce good results fairly easily. It also opens up some possibilities that are difficult with LaTeX.

LaTeX to accessible PDFs: this is a quick route to a good destination, but I think that destination is a bit limited, and the road is fragile right now.

LaTeX to EPUB

An EPUB file is a 'website in a box': it's a collection of HTML files, with some standard added metadata, bundled into a zip file, and named something.epub rather than something.zip. The key question is: how do you go from the LaTeX you (by hypothesis) already have, to the HTML?

The fact that EPUB is HTML is important, because HTML is easy to make accessible: with CSS styling it's possible to change the appearance of the document (font size, style, and colour, page layout, and so on); the document structure is manifest, so it gives assistive technologies something to work with; and it is friendly to screen readers, for users with significant visual problems. Setting aside specialised technology, if a user unpacks an EPUB into a set of HTML files, then they can read it using a web browser, and there are fairly well-known techniques for customising those. That is, this turns into a malleable format, as mentioned above.

Hasn't this been done before?

There are multiple tools for turning LaTeX into HTML. In the past, I've used at least LaTeX2HTML, tth, TeX4ht, and LaTeXML. All of these have their virtues, which I'm not going to discuss or contrast, but it's the last one that I've been most impressed by, in terms of its fundamental design, the comprehensiveness of its coverage, and the possibilities for extending it when it runs out of steam.

Plus, it can produce EPUB without effort.

LaTeXML

LaTeXML is a spin-off from the DLMF (ie, Abramowitz and Stegun: TNG). It parses the TeX at a fairly low level, which means that it is capable of being extended by a range of LaTeX packages (just like ordinary LaTeX), and for those cases where a package does something LaTeXML can't cope with, it can be extended relatively easily (that extension is done in Perl, and is not for the faint-hearted, but I mention it to note that it means the system has scope to deal with even rather challenging source documents).

Significantly, LaTeXML reads LaTeX maths and converts it to MathML, as opposed to converting it to images. MathML is now patchily but probably adequately supported in browsers (and see a separate W3C list of tools), and systems like MathJax can help render it in those remaining cases where it's not supported.

The end result doesn't look as good as the PDF version - typographically, it's respectable but not great. Also, it's possible you'll have to make some layout adjustments, since the text will potentially be displayed in an unpredictably narrower 'page' than in the paper version. But that's OK, since I for one expect to distribute the EPUB as an alternative to the PDF version of the notes, rather than as a replacement.

The current version, as of September 2021, is v0.8.5. It's under active development. LaTeXML is currently quite ambitious: it is a goal of LaTeXML that 'We should ideally be able to convert all of arXiv with latexml', and you might be interested in arXiv Vanity, which 'renders academic papers from arXiv as responsive web pages so you don't have to squint at a PDF', and which is built on LaTeXML.

Using it

The LaTeXML web pages give some installation instructions. Depending on your preferred platform, that step might be easy or might not (specifically, it looks like installation on Windows is currently a pain in the neck).

Using LaTeXML is potentially as simple as

% latexmlc --pmml --split --splitat chapter --destination notes.epub notes.tex

on an unedited version of your source .tex file. Although the tool is generally well documented, for this driver program you'll (currently) need to consult the output of latexmlc -h.

Environment variables such as TEXINPUTS and BIBINPUTS work as usual. You may need to include --includestyles if you have private packages that you use; or add your own CSS styling with --css; and with --svg you can even include {picture} environments.

You can see the result of this command on a thinned-down version of my A2 lecture notes, and in a screenshot below. Those parentheses aren't quite the right size and the linebreak after the section heading is poor, but it's readable, and all of the cross-references work (looking at this in a web browser looks better, to me). The 'See Exercises...' text is formatted using the same LaTeX \newcommand as for the PDF version of this document. I did not have to make significant changes to my source document to get this to work.

EPUB screenshot

The actual version of that EPUB, that I will be distributing this coming year, is produced by a slightly different process (for reasons...); there's a fair amount of scope for tweaking the process, but if the tool works, it seems to me to work robustly.

If you run into difficulties, then it might be because you're using LaTeX packages that perplex the tool. If those packages are related to layout, then you might as well skip them. I find it convenient to have two main LaTeX files, one for 'normal' PDF output and one for LaTeXML, both of which \input the common body of the text, but the latter of which loads only a minimal set of packages.

Success and failure

I've experimented with a small range of documents, both mine and other people's. Documents which are structurally similar to an article or a book seem to do well (and it copes with a surprisingly large range of extra packages); documents which are not, produce erratic results. Beamer presentations don't seem to be handled with success, even in article mode, though I haven't dug into whether this is for superficial or deep reasons.

The EPUB that LaTeXML produces (as of v0.8.5, in September 2021) has a few technical glitches, but nothing that seems likely to disturb a real-world reader.

There is a range of EPUB readers. I'm familiar with the one bundled with macOS, called Books, and I've found Calibre to work OK on macOS; and of course you can always just unzip the .epub file and read it with a web browser. But I haven't been systematic in surveying alternatives: I don't have any recommendations for other platforms, but I'm aware there are multiple alternatives to choose from.

A few details, for completeness

I'll also mention that I'm fairly uninhibited about extending LaTeX with my own macros and packages; that meant I'd given myself a little work to do (but a lot less than I expected) to adapt those packages to LaTeXML (plus use of the --css and --includestyles options to latexmlc).

If you happen to be interested in exploring further (and you needn't be), then you might want to play with the W3C's EPUBCheck validator, and, for extra credit, with the DAISY Consortium's accessibility checker. The latter tool is concerned with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (see the WCAG group, and the associated standard). The gold standard here is to make a claim of WCAG2 AA conformance. That's what LaTeXML is aiming for, but I get the impression you can be quite a way off that and still be doing respectably well in accessibility terms.

Markdown to HTML and EPUB

Same destination, different start-point.

Markdown is a way of formatting relatively simple texts with unobtrusive markup. The idea of Markdown is that text is annotated with unobtrusive markup, of the sort you might see in a plain text email anyway.

The previous paragraph started off as:

[Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) is a way of formatting relatively simple texts with unobtrusive markup. The idea of Markdown is that text is annotated with _unobtrusive_ markup, of the sort you might see in a plain `text` [email][rfc] **anyway**. [rfc]: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc822.txt

That's a large fraction of what you need to know about Markdown syntax. It's used all over the place, and is a good solution to an important problem.

But the fearless forces of progress will never be held back by mere success!

Although it's simple at its heart, and in its original conception, Markdown now comes in numerous variants, not all of them mutually compatible but including, crucially, some implementations which can process LaTeX maths. In particular, the pandoc converter can process a substantially extended Markdown syntax - specifically including $maths$ - and turn it into HTML or EPUB. If you put the above paragraph into a file try-pandoc.txt, and

% pandoc -o try-pandoc.html try-pandoc.txt

you'd get an HTML version of the text.

If you have a structurally simple document, this is great. My experience converting a more complicated document - specifically one with a fair density of internal cross references and some custom formatting - is that it rapidly became rather messy, and I lost sight of the simplicity of Markdown.

RMarkdown - not just the command line

Where this approach really scores is if you use RMarkdown as a front end. This lets you do two important things:

It provides a visual editor and previewer, which will support writing Markdown conveniently.

It allows you to embed code into the document (RStudio is at heart a notebook environment for R, but works for other languages such as Python). This opens up some interesting possibilities regarding the sort of documents one might distribute to students.

In Markdown terms, however, RMarkdown is 'merely' a front-end to pandoc so the pandoc manual is the authority on the precise Markdown variant that's supported.

Depending on your starting point, it might also be easier to install, and doesn't require familiarity with the command line (I admit, though, that my experiments here have been with Pandoc, and I haven't actually played with the RStudio editor).

LaTeX to accessible PDF

The third possibility is to generate PDFs from LaTeX, but make the PDFs 'accessible', in a way that gives respectable scores from the Blackboard Ally tool that my institution uses.

'The problem with [Quantitative Easing] is it works in practice, but it doesn't work in theory.'
[according to Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve Chairman during the 2008-09 financial crisis.]

In principle, this is doomed to failure (for the reasons why, see below). But in fact it works much better in practice than in principle: significantly better than one might expect, and indeed works better than it has any right to!

You might get away with including

\usepackage[tagpdf]{axessibility}

in your LaTeX preamble, and you might additionally have to include

\RequirePackage{pdfmanagement-testphase} \DeclareDocumentMetadata{}

before the \documentclass line. If it compiles without error, then it has probably worked (you shouldn't see any visible difference in your document), and you should get a better score on Blackboard Ally or similar.

But:

This route potentially satisfies only a relatively narrow range of real accessibility requirements (see below).

This requires a very up-to-date installation of LaTeX, it may work with lualatex and not xelatex, and if you don't have something sufficiently up to date, it'll fail in odd ways.

It's very experimental - if you look at the documentation for the axessibility or tagpdf packages, they say, essentially, 'do not use this package', and the pdfmanagement-testphase package '...will disappear when the code is integrated into the LaTeX format.' So the interface to this might be different next year.

The LaTeX kernel is being modified to better support the required functionality. Those changes should appear in the next few years, at which point the support required in the document will change.

Why the reservations?

Well, since you asked...

The Problem with PDF from this point of view, is that it is a page description language: its job is to put dots on paper or on the screen. It's fundamentally a visual format. Usually, it will do that job using pre-prepared libraries of dots (this is known as that exotic thing, a 'font'), but there ends up being a great deal of freedom in what a PDF writer actually does. The pdftex engine doesn't, for example, include space characters in the output, simply positioning successive words with suitably-sized gaps between them - this is why sometimes, when you cut and paste some text from a PDF, it appears as a continuous block of unspaced text (this is what a screen-reader would see, too).

Similarly, a PDF writer doesn't necessarily include text within the PDF file in the same order it appears on the printed page; this would confuse any screen reader. This is unlikely to happen in practice for most LaTeX text, but it illustrates the depth of the problem.

PDF writers usually do their work in such a way that a screen-reader can unscramble the egg. They do this part-heuristically and generally quite successfully, but this becomes challenging for maths, or images. What also complicates things is that all text is simply text, whether it appears in a heading, the body text, or the page number, and a screen-reader will read out all of those things as equivalent. The way that problem is addressed is by 'tagging'.

A 'tag' in PDF terms, is a label attached to a block of content, which labels it as, for example, paragraph text, or a level- n heading, or a page footer, in such a way that a screen reader (or similar) can provide a table of contents for the document, so that the human reader can skip through it, or at least distinguish headings from body. Tags also let a screen reader work through the content in reading order rather than file order (where they differ), and avoid reading out the page-number and footers at all.

The core of the work done by the axessibility package, and the tagpdf package it depends on, is to add basic tagging to at least the sectioning macros in your document - \section and so on - and copy the LaTeX code for equations into the document in a way a screen reader can see. This is such a big deal that this by itself appears to be what significantly increases the PDF's score in Blackboard Ally-type tools.

But...

But this whole process is fragile, since there is a fundamental mismatch between the requirements of the PDF format and what LaTeX is currently able to do. The LaTeX kernel is being changed to support tags better: see the announcement of the project, and a progress summary, along with a detailed discussion of the problem (p.26) by Ulrike Fischer, the author of tagpdf. The results are due to appear in a couple of years from now, but the axessibility mechanism will remain on the edge of breakage at least until then.

The practical problem is that I don't really know if what this package does is useful. It does get tags into PDFs, and that does increase Blackboard Ally scores, but I'm not sure how useful a block of read-aloud LaTeX code is to a student, and others have commented that the results of this process are not particularly useful in practice.

It's also worth noting that, although tagging a PDF might help screen readers, as far as I can see it only helps screen readers. That's not nothing, but it doesn't turn the PDF into the sort of malleable digital object that a user with some impairments can tune to their own requirements. I get the impression, from talking to people who have looked at this in more detail, that although PDFs can be made less bad with tagging, they are never going to be a fully satisfactory solution to this problem.

I'm trying to find out more details about the extent to which this suspicion is true or false, and I'll aim to update this post with what I find out.

Discussion

My strongest suggestion remains: use LaTeXML. This is the solution I'm going to use this coming semester, distributing EPUB alongside my PDF notes (certainly not instead of them). Despite its apparently clear success here, I'm puzzled that I don't see EPUBs mentioned more often in these contexts. It's true that LaTeXML requires a bit of effort to set up (and that is an issue), but with that done EPUB seems robust, and the results look OK to me.

The problem is that, although using LaTeXML isn't a lot of work, it's more work than adding a couple of lines to the top of a LaTeX source file. Thus the question comes down to whether or not the tagged PDF is good enough. If the axessibility package does only half the job, but it's the right half, then that's a win; if not, not.

My big problem is that I don't really know just what counts as 'OK' for someone who actually depends on this technology. That's what I need to find out about.

Acknowledgements: thanks, for various pointers and conversations, to Drew McConnell and Shazia Ahmed in Glasgow University, and Natasha Johnston in Visibility Scotland.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Approaches to accessible mathematical text

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The following are notes on various approaches to the problem of producing mathematical text online, in a way which is accessible to folk with one or other visual impairment. The motivating use-case is that of getting maths-heavy lecture notes online, and the discussion is addressed to people with at least some familiarity with LaTeX.

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Jisc Accessibility Community maths working group

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Jisc Accessibility Community maths working group

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The Jisc Accessibility Community maths working group aims to collate useful research and practices for the HE sector.

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The Jisc Accessibility Community maths working group aims to collate useful research and practices for the HE sector. - A11yMaths

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Clip of a visually impaired person navigating a web page by headings

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Clip of a visually impaired person navigating a web page by headings

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15 seconds · Clipped by Christine Cé · Original video "How a Blind Person Uses a Computer and an iPhone" by Cayla with a C

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ARK - Accessibility Resources and Know-How

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ARK - Accessibility Resources and Know-How

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Has free accessibility courses, including one for educators

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Welcome to ARK, AHEAD's home for digital accessibility resources and know-how in tertiary education. Accessibility is key to inclusion as it provides more equal access for students and staff to engage with institutions, their services and related educational materials. AHEAD created this platform to teach accessible practices to staff throughout tertiary education institutions.

What is ARK?

ARK is AHEAD's online platform which provides practical resources and know-how to support a range of institutional staff to be more accessible in their roles. ARK helps support tertiary education organisations to consider a whole of institution approach to accessibility. It also helps tertiary institutions to meet their legal obligations and to boost accessibility compliance, providing a better learning and education experience for all.

What does ark include?

A range of free role-based short courses for educators, administrative, senior and technical staff, which can either be taken directly with AHEAD, or embedded in institutions' internal CPD systems under a creative commons license.

An introduction to key web accessibility legislation for further and higher education institutions and a legal FAQ on what the web accessibility directive means in practice.

Links to lots of other valuable AHEAD and external resources to continue your accessibility journey that you can find below.

Our free Accessibility Courses - Just Self enroll.

If you are interested in developing introductory accessibility skills, raising awareness about digital inclusion, and reflecting on how to embed good digital accessibility practices across your organisation, then our free courses are available:

1. Free Course: An Introduction to Digital Accessibility for Educators.

2. Free Course: Digital accessibility - a Whole Institution Approach.

3. Free Course: Developing a Web Accessibility Statement

4. Free Course: Designing Course Layouts for Learner Success

5. Free Course: Universal Design for Learning - Getting Started

When each course is completed you will automatically receive a Digital Badge and if you wish to complete the first 3 then you receive a Digital Accessibility Master Badge for your dedication to accessibility.

ARK ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT

Our Accessibility statement for the ARK Resource can be downloaded from the below link.
ARK Accessibility and Compliance Statement

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5 Free Online Courses on ARK - Accessibility Resources and Know-How!

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The impact that high quality mark-up can have on accessibility, performance, and discoverability

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The impact that high quality mark-up can have on accessibility, performance, and discoverability

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Presentation slide deck

The impact that high quality mark-up can have on accessibility, performance, and discoverability.
[PowerPoint 50.7MB PPTX]

Synopsis

Going beyond accessibility checklists, you may quickly get bogged down with technical details and acronyms that you feel you may never understand. In this fast-paced 30-minute presentation I use worked examples, with screen reader demonstrations, to cover topics including:

semantic landmarks

using ARIA attributes to improve the screen reader experience

respecting motion and colour preference

dark and light themes

the new contrast measurement in WCAG 3

and more.

My hope is that by the end of this presentation you feel more informed and ready to dive deeper into web accessibility.

Note

To view the code examples in more detail, just view the source of the pages on this site.

Resources and links

Github pages

WCAG success criteria to which I refer

Authoring

Layout

Accessible Rich Internet Applications

SVGs

Reducing motion

Dark mode

Contrast

Performance

Discoverability

Card Validators

For code snippets

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The impact that high quality mark-up can have on accessibility, performance, and discoverability.

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The impact that high quality mark-up can have on accessibility, performance, and discoverability. [PowerPoint 50.7MB PPTX] Going beyond accessibility checklists, you may quickly get bogged down with technical details and acronyms that you feel you may never understand.

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Access to exams and test for blind and visually impaired people (RNIB guidance)

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Access to exams and test for blind and visually impaired people (RNIB guidance)

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Equal access to examinations and qualifications forms an essential part of the entitlement of children and young people with vision impairment to high quality educational outcomes.

We offer some key points to consider when entering a blind or partially sighted learner for external exams.

We have made this short film with staff and pupils of Tapton School in Sheffield to explain how access arrangements for GCSE exams work.

Exam Access Arrangements

Our Overview of Exam Access Arrangements guide provides a broad overview of access arrangements for tests and examinations.

We have also produced an Exam Access Arrangements Checklist which may be helpful when planning access arrangements and adjustments. Some Exam Access Arrangements FAQ can be found on the Sight Advice FAQ website.

With all access arrangements, the guiding principle is that a learner's exam experience should match as closely as possible the way they work every day. Consulting learners themselves is an essential way of making sure that this happens.

Choosing courses

Most courses are fully accessible to candidates with vision impairment. However, with some practical subjects or those involving inherently visual skills there may be some assessment requirements which a candidate may not be able to meet and for which alternative assessments will be complicated. It is important to check with awarding bodies and course providers before a learner starts a course whether this is likely to be the case and what impact this might have on the course and final grade.

Seeking specialist advice

Most visually impaired learners will receive specialist input from a qualified teacher of children with vision impairment (QTVI). It is important to consult the QTVI before deciding what access arrangements to request.

Modified papers

Awarding bodies offer a range of "standard" formats for modified papers in accessible formats. It is important to liaise with the QTVI and confirm which format is best suited to a learner's needs and not to order a format with which they are not familiar. If in doubt, you can work with the QTVI to order samples and past papers. You can find out more about the range of accessible formats in the Access arrangements and reasonable adjustments document produced by JCQ and updated annually. In 2020 the relevant section for vision impairment is in Chapter 6.

The "standard" list of accessible formats is not exhaustive and if you require something that is not on that list you should enter into a dialogue with the exam board as early as possible to find an alternative.

The deadline for application for modified papers is earlier than that for other access arrangements in order to give awarding bodies the time to produce the papers in the formats requested. It is important to keep to these deadlines to guarantee that the papers can be produced in time.

Modification and production of exam papers

Exams in accessible formats for general qualifications (GCSE, A-level etc) are produced in line with nationally agreed guidelines to make sure they are consistent in quality and style.

The guidance document is produced by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). It provides important information for anyone preparing students for external exams or producing practice exam material locally. Similar standards are followed in the production of SATs tests.

Download the latest Best Practice Guidance "Guidance for the modification and production of examination papers for candidates with a visual impairment" from UKAAF. (NB: the guidance is currently being finalised for 2020/21 and will be available in autumn 2020.)

Well prepared

Make sure your school has a copy of Well Prepared! from RNIB Bookshare It is our definitive guide to modifying examination, assessment and curriculum materials for blind and partially sighted learners. It is important that school assessments and learning materials introduce the layout and modifications a blind or partially sighted child will use in public examinations.

Further information on access arrangements

General qualifications (GCSE etc)

Details of access arrangements are available in a publication called "Access Arrangements, Reasonable Adjustments and Special Consideration" which is updated each year and available to download on the Joint Council for Qualifications website.

For enquiries about specific access arrangements, contact JCQ on 020 7638 4132 or [email protected] .

CCEA access arrangements (Northern Ireland)

For information about access arrangements for qualifications in Northern Ireland visit the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment.

Scottish Qualifications Agency

For information about access arrangements for qualifications in Scotland, visit the Scottish Qualifications Agency.

Examination Officers

This website offers information that supports Exam Officers.

National Curriculum tests (SATs)

General information about assessment and reporting arrangements, including access arrangements, for Key Stages 1-2 is available on the Department for Education website.

Primary Assessment Gateway is the online booking system for testing arrangements.

Alternatively please contact National Curriculum Assessments Helpline on 0300 303 3013 or [email protected] .

11+ and Cognitive Ability Tests

RNIB and GL Assessment, one of the UK's leading independent test publishers, have developed user guidelines for schools, local authorities and VI services for decisions about the use of 11+ test papers for pupils with vision impairment. These guidelines will also be useful to anyone interested in making cognitive ability tests (e.g. CAT) accessible to children with vision impairment. Download the guidelines and a case study about making reasonable adjustments for pupils with vision impairment from the GL Assessment website.

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Equal access to examinations and qualifications forms an essential part of the entitlement of children and young people with vision impairment to high quality educational outcomes. We offer some key points to consider when entering a blind or partially sighted learner for external exams. We have made this short film with staff and pupils of Tapton School in Sheffield to explain how access arrangements for GCSE exams work.

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Why

Why is this important for higher education? From cultural and linguistic proficiences to unbridled enthusiasm for study, to desperate anxiety about the challenges ahead, students vary. Reducing cognitive, linguistic, executive, and affective barriers is of vital importance as students negotiate college and university expectations differently, according to their widely ranging background experiences.

UDL Connection

Types of Assessment

The purpose of assessment in postsecondary courses varies as well. Assessments are often designed to gather student data that will yield information about accountability, student progress, and instruction.

Accountability: Assessing student performance with respect to job preparation, prerequisites, and university or college program goals

Student Progress: Assessing changes in student performance over time as a result of instruction (assessment of learning)

Instruction: Probing student responses to instruction in order to optimize the course of learning (assessment for learning)

Assessment is used in courses to determine how well students are meeting goals that have been set (e.g., goals around job performance, goals around changes in knowledge). Measurable outcomes from assessments should be comparable with or benchmarked against set course goals. Assessment outcomes, in turn, should inform further instruction.

Assessing Variable Learners

Provision of options within the design of both formative and summative assessment helps to ensure that all learners can act on new information and demonstrate what they know. This requires a distribution of the demands and benefits of any one kind of assessment among all students. For example, students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) may have issues with working memory that would make long multiple choice assessments challenging. If this is the only way students are assessed in a course, students with working memory challenges will have more demands and fewer benefits when it comes to assessment. If writing long responses to text passages is the only option for assessment, students who are not native English speakers will have more demands and fewer benefits, especially if they do not have access to aids such as a glossary or dictionary or if there is time pressure to respond. In sum, greater attention must be paid to issues of learner variability in the design of assessments. Further, consideration needs to be given to embedded design features in digital assessments (such as text-to-speech capability, availability of key word definitions, hints or coaching tips, etc.) so that assessments support students that vary in terms of their strengths, weaknesses, and learning needs.

[White text appears on magenta background: "UDL On Campus." The colors are inverted and a wave of orange slides over the "UDL On Campus" magenta text. Grey text appears below: "Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education."]

FEMALE VOICE: UDL On Campus: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education.

[The title appears onscreen.]

FEMALE NARRATOR: An Introduction to UDL and Assessment.

[The screen opens to a montage of scenes on a college campus: a health sciences classroom, an academic support center, a welcome center, a campus directory map, and students working on computers in computer labs and libraries. The last two scenes show a female student on her laptop and a male student and his tutor working together on a paper-based assignment.]

FEMALE NARRATOR: Reducing learning barriers is of vital importance in postsecondary settings as learners arrive in colleges and universities with a diverse set of experiences; what may be a preferred learning mode for one individual may be an obstacle for another.

[A montage of more college and university life: a lounge area, a student working with a Bunsen burner in a lab, and an auditorium of students. The same female student is spotlighted: we see her working on a mass and wind project on her laptop. She looks at different visual data and engages with a colorful diagram.]

FEMALE NARRATOR: In learning environments, individual variability is the norm, not the exception. Instructors of postsecondary courses set goals for learners. Assessment is used in courses to determine how well learners are meeting instructional goals. Goals need to be clear, and separate from the means of achieving them. Assessments should offer more than one route for demonstrating mastery.

[The scene changes to a split screen of close-ups of two students: the female student working on her laptop and the male student writing on paper. The images split open like sliding doors to reveal text underneath: "Construct." The definition fades in below: "the term used to define the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be assessed."]

FEMALE NARRATOR: A critical part of assessment is the construct. "Construct" is the term used to define the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be assessed.

[Different text appears onscreen: " Construct Relevant Factors." The definition fades in below: "type of presentation or response that are related to the construct that the test is intended to measure."]

FEMALE NARRATOR: Construct relevant factors refer to factors such as type of presentation or response that are related to the construct that the test is intended to measure.

[Another montage of scenes appears: a hand pressing a button on a graphing calculator, a close-up of the graph it formed, and a handwritten chart of math symbols.]

FEMALE NARRATOR: Many assessments include features that are not relevant to the construct being assessed. These are considered construct irrelevant items. These features may pose barriers for some learners and impact their performance on the assessment.

[Text appears onscreen: "Universal Design for Learning." Three sections fade in below the heading: "Affective Networks," with a brain highlighting these portions in green; "Recognition Networks," with a brain highlighting these portions in purple; and "Strategic Networks," with a brain highlighting these portions in blue. Text fades in below: "the WHY of learning," "the WHAT of learning," and "the HOW of learning." Each network then appears individually with their corresponding brain: Recognition Networks and " Multiple Means of Representation," Strategic Networks and " Multiple Means of Action and Expression" and Affective Networks and " Multiple Means of Engagement."]

FEMALE NARRATOR: That's where Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, comes into play. As a set of three principles for curriculum development, UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, assessments, methods, and materials that work for the widest possible range of learners. This flexible approach to curriculum development can positively impact how learners perform on assessments and result in a more authentic appraisal of learner achievement.

[Lines move in against a white background. A purple box and the text "Multiple Means of Representation" push in. Video footage is shown of the female student working on different diagrams for her mass and wind project. Text appears below: "presentation of information."]

FEMALE NARRATOR: The first principle, representation, focuses on the ways in which information, including assessment items, is presented. These can be charts, graphs, images, videos, demonstrations, or objects to manipulate.

[Lines move in against a white background. A blue box and the text "Multiple Means of Action and Expression" push in. Video footage is shown of a different female student working on a whiteboard, followed by a whiteboard animation. Text appears below: "learners demonstrate what they have learned."]

FEMALE NARRATOR: The second principle, action and expression, focuses on how learners demonstrate what they have learned. Do they have the option to write or draw? Do they have the option to present their capabilities through multimedia or a recording?

[Lines move in against a white background. A green box and the text "Multiple Means of Engagement" push in. Video footage is shown of the male student working with his tutor on a paper-based assignment. Text appears below: "enhancing learner motivation and persistence."]

FEMALE NARRATOR: The third principle, engagement, focuses on enhancing motivation and persistence. When their achievement is assessed, are they sufficiently but not overly, challenged? Do they have options and variety in how they are assessed to help reduce anxiety?

[The screen changes to show a teacher in a mathematics classroom addressing students. A montage of students follows: a student using a Braille writer, the female student working on her mass and wind project, the male student and his tutor working on his paper-based assignment, and a student working on a physics assignment with an enlarged screen display.]

FEMALE NARRATOR: It is important for instructors to be aware of the inherent variability of learners-the existence of barriers that may impede both the acquisition of information and expressing their competencies. Designing assessments with these challenges in mind will allow for greater flexibility to ensure learner success.

[A white background appears with the following credits:

A Production by CAST
Script Rhianon Gutierrez, Skip Stahl
Narration Mary O'Malley
Editing Ge Vue, Rhianon Gutierrez

Developed as part of the Open Professionals Education Network (Logos for OPEN, CAST, and Creative Commons)

References
Rose, D. H., Hall, T. E., & Murray, E. (2008, Fall). Accurate for all: Universal design for learning and the assessment of students with learning disabilities. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 23-28.

This video features the following media:
"Welcome to Bristol Community College," by Bristol Community College,
Source: http://www.youtube.com/ Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
"Juna Gjata Video Series," & "Alessia's Story," by NCAIM at CAST, Inc.
Source: http://aem.cast.org/
Used with permission from NCAIM at CAST, Inc.

(Logos for Creative Commons CC, BY, and SA)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

UDL On Campus: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education]

Construct Relevance

Assessments are designed to measure knowledge, skills, and abilities. Constructs are the knowledge, skills or abilities being measured by an assessment. By their nature, however, most assessments include features that are not relevant to the construct being assessed. Often the methods and materials used in assessments require additional skills and understanding. These are considered to be construct irrelevant. Construct-irrelevant features of assessments may pose barriers for some students, preventing an accurate measurement of the construct.

Math assessment that includes word problems to assess students' understanding of math concepts.

Essay exam in a Biology class that is both timed and closed book.

The ability to read fluently is construct irrelevant. Even though it is an important skill, it is not part of the construct being measured. Learners who have difficulty with reading may miss certain items even though they may have a good grasp of the underlying math concepts.

Construct-irrelevant factors include motor coordination (handwriting or typing skills), short-term and working memory, organization and time management, attention, and the ability to work under pressure. The additional measurement of these many factors can prevent gaining an accurate picture of a student's Biology content knowledge.

Minimizing construct-irrelevant factors does not lessen the rigor of an assessment but instead gives a more accurate picture of what learners are actually learning in terms of the knowledge, skills, and abilities identified in the course goals. Having an accurate picture of student learning is particularly important for formative assessments, where results can be used to revise instruction as a course progresses. Minimizing construct-irrelevant factors helps to focus in on where students are actually struggling with content, skills, or abilities that the assessment is meant to measure.

It is important to consider construct relevance when creating assessments. For example:

Supports can be provided to reduce the measurement of construct-irrelevant factors, such as providing text-to-speech so that reading ability is not being measured in an assessment of content knowledge in mathematics.

Students can be provided with options for how they demonstrate what they know, such as presenting a project either through an open-book essay or an oral presentation.

When construct irrelevance cannot be avoided, such as when administering a standardized test that has not been designed with attention to construct relevance, it is important that the instructor is aware of learners for whom there may be barriers and how it would impact their performance. The demands and benefits of any one form of assessment will differ depending upon who is taking it.

By providing supports and options around how to demonstrate knowledge, and by developing awareness of what barriers different forms of assessment create for different students, faculty can better distribute the demands and benefits of any one form of assessment among all learners.

UDL Principles and Assessment

In learning environments, individual variability is the norm, not the exception. Learners differ from one another, and an individual learner differs over time (students may be tired or hungry on a given day), depending on the task in front of them (students may be bored or feel over challenged), and the context for the assignment (students may consider the material to be controversial or feel that the material is not relevant to them).

Three primary principles of UDL, which are based on research in the learning sciences, guide UDL. These principles can be helpful in thinking about the design of assessments.

Provide Multiple Means of Engagement

Providing multiple means of engagement (the why of learning) means supporting interest, motivation, and persistence. Just as students learn more effectively when they are engaged and motivated, their performance on assessments can be enhanced by increasing engagement.

Do students think that they can be successful? Emphasizing the importance of effort and motivation and expressing confidence that students can meet high expectations can improve their performance.

Do assessments provide different levels of challenge? One way to do this is to provide options on essay exams so that students can choose a question they feel they can answer well. Another way is to allow students to answer essay questions in different formats. Perhaps students could write a classic essay, create a short play, or create a video response. Once an instructor has addressed the question, ""What do I really want the learner to learn?" (i.e., construct relevance) then the individual motivations and desires of learners and the time constraints of their instructors may be the only limits to the possibilities.

Are different formats used for assessments over the course of a semester? As mentioned earlier, the demands and benefits of any one form of assessment will differ for each student. Therefore, the options and supports provided for the first two UDL principles (representation andaction and expression) can enhance engagement in the assessment process.

Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression

Providing multiple means of action and expression (the how of learning) means providing different ways for students to work with information and content and to demonstrate what they are learning.

In assessment, consider the ways in which students will demonstrate what they have learned.

Will they need to write or draw?

Will they demonstrate an action?

Do they need to organize information mentally, or can something be provided to help them organize the information (e.g., concept mapping software)?

Again, consider which actions are actually relevant to the construct being measured and which ones can be supported or varied in order to gain an accurate picture of what each student has learned.

Provide Multiple Means of Representation

Providing multiple means of representation (the what of learning) means presenting information and content in different ways and making connections between them. When planning assessments, consider the ways in which the items are presented-text, graphs, charts, images, videos, demonstrations, objects to manipulate.

Do the ways in which items are presented create barriers for any students?

Are there alternatives that could be used that would still allow accurate assessment of what students should know or be able to do?

Are the representations used construct relevant?For example, if students need to be able to interpret information in graph format, then the graph itself is relevant. If they only need to be able to use the information in the graph, consider providing different formats for displaying the information. Tables, charts, infographics, or even plain text may be a more accessible format for some students. Remember, the goal is to find out what students are actually learning. Keep in mind basic accessibility requirements for images (including images of tables, charts, and graphs). Any text in an image needs to be readable by a computer or other assistive device that a student might need for access. All images should have alt text. Additionally, along description is needed when an image is complex and cannot be described briefly.

Applying the UDL Principles

When applying UDL principles to assessment, it can be helpful to consider first where there might be barriers that would impact the performance of some learners. Below are examples of barriers and some options for minimizing them. Keep in mind that constructs can be assessed in many ways, and the goal is to minimize factors that are construct irrelevant.

Possible Barriers

Assessments that create anxiety in some students

Assessments that do not engage some students

Assessments that require persistence

Assessment Options

Remember that every assessment instrument is automatically measuring each student's reactions to the motivating conditions present in that assessment. For example, some students are enthusiastic about spontaneity and novelty around assessment conditions, while other students experience great amounts of anxiety under such conditions and seek comfort and support.

Offering choice and variety in assessment conditions can reduce these barriers. For example, developing a web site vs. giving a presentation. Offering options between quizzes, journaling, and specific assignments or projects can provide variety.

Possible Barriers

Assessments that have a single response mode (asking learners to draw diagrams for every answer)

Using the same format for response for all assessments (using only multiple choice, written response)

Assessment Options

The demands associated with responding to any assessment are not always construct relevant. In other words, if the goal of the assessment is to understand the processes involved in cell division, then asking the learner to write an essay and grading the construction of the essay may not be relevant to the task of understanding that the learner really needed to know. Supporting strategic and organizational abilities and allowing students to express acquired knowledge and skills in diverse ways can be built into a variety of assessments.

Choices, again, can be helpful. For example, an assignment on identifying barriers to economic expansion in post-World War II Europe could include the options of an essay, PowerPoint presentation, video, or infographic to achieve the same goal. Demonstrating understanding of text can be expressed by students choosing keepers (items from the text the learner finds important and relevant) and generating queries (questions created by the learner to be answered later) about the content. These can be expressed in written or verbal form, in a group or alone.

Possible Barriers

Assessments that provide relevant information in a single format (for example, using tests from a textbook in the same format for every assessment, such as end-of-chapter questions)

Using the same forms of representation for all assessments (for example, requiring students to integrate new information from their instructor with a PowerPoint presentation only)

Assessment Options

Side-stepping a "one size fits all" assessment allows for students to access key ingredients. For example, highlighting critical features in a text or graphic, providing definitions for vocabulary, and scaffolding reading strategies to support comprehension can open up a variety of options for students to engage in the goals of the assessment. It is, of course, important that these supports do not impact construct relevance. In other words, if it is important for the student to be able to glean relevant information from a graphic representation (such as they might encounter in the workplace), then the assessment must include relevant information in a graphic representation.

In order for students to "show what they know, providing choices in how to access information is key. For example, start with content students have had success with in the past; then work from there, checking to see what other options for representation could be available. Ask, "Are there other media available; are there more choices learners can have to show mastery?"

Examples in a Mathematics Course

There are many ways to apply the guidelines of UDL within assessment in a specific course. Below are just a few specific examples that could help to address barriers for some students.

Provide options for physical actions

Provide open-book quizzes

During quizzes and tests completed individually, provide scheduled breaks so students can communicate with each other and their instructor in order to become "unstuck" while working on complex equations and problem solving. For example, during tests, one mathematics instructor writes some of the complex equations on whiteboards around the room. During a ten-minute break, students have the option to approach a problem and talk through their thinking in order to progress to the next step in the activity if they are stuck.

Provide options for expression and communication

Allow for small group work

Use a computer program, such as software for creating drawings, to demonstrate lesson goals and objectives

Provide options for executive functions

Allow students to take a video of themselves solving a problem and talking through their thought processes

Provide a choice of mathematical problems for students to complete to demonstrate mastery of a learning objective

Review

Ongoing assessment is an essential part of any course. Learners vary in the ways in which they learn and can demonstrate what they are learning. Because of this variability, construct-irrelevant features in assessments can create barriers that prevent some learners from accurately demonstrating what they have learned. The principles of universal design for learning (UDL) can be applied to help identify and address construct-irrelevant barriers in assessments.

Notes

¹Rose, D. H., Hall, T. E., & Murray, E. (2008, Fall). Accurate for all: Universal design for learning and the assessment of students with learning disabilities. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 23-28.

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Why is this important for higher education? From cultural and linguistic proficiences to unbridled enthusiasm for study, to desperate anxiety about the challenges ahead, students vary. Reducing cognitive, linguistic, executive, and affective barriers is of vital importance as students negotiate college and university expectations differently, according to their widely ranging background experiences.

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Assessment and feedback in HE: survey results

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Assessment and feedback in HE: survey results

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Assessment and feedback higher education landscape review: survey outcomes

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Whether as an acceleration of a planned strategy or an emergency response, changing assessment practice has been a priority.

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From fixes to foresight: Jisc and Emerge Education insights for universities and startups.

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Principles of good assessment and feedback (JISC guidance)

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Principles of good assessment and feedback (JISC guidance)

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Why review assessment practice?

Introducing the seven principles

Principle one - help learners understand what good looks like

Principle two - support the personalised needs of learners

Principle three - foster active learning

Principle four - develop autonomous learners

Principle five - manage staff and learner workload effectively

Principle six - foster a motivated learning community

Principle seven - promote learner employability

Why review assessment practice?

The pandemic accelerated digital transformation of assessment for some institutions and caused others to question not only how they do things but whether they are doing the right things?

Assessment and feedback forms a significant element of staff and student workload and many studies have shown that students, in higher education, are less satisfied with assessment and feedback than with any other aspect of the experience.

This guide will help you determine what good assessment and feedback looks like in your context so you can benchmark existing practice and plan improvement.

Assessment and feedback landscape

Through consultation with universities, a survey and a review of the current literature we gained a picture of the UK assessment and feedback landscape in higher education. View Jisc's assessment and feedback higher education landscape review.

About the examples in this guide

Each of the principles is accompanied by short case studies of implementation.

Where possible we have chosen examples where digital technology has been used to support and enhance good practice.

Previous research found good practice was often difficult to scale up because it required manual intervention or tools that were not interoperable. Our examples show innovative practice delivered at scale and using open standards to facilitate seamless integration with existing tools and administrative systems.

Assessment and feedback: direction of travel

For a number of years assessment and feedback practice has been on a trajectory away from assessment of learning to what is termed assessment for learning.

Key to this has been helping students monitor and regulate their own learning and trying to ensure that any feedback activity feeds forward leading to future improvement.

Current assessment practice increasingly includes activities that could be termed assessment as learning. The very act of undertaking assessment and feedback activities is an essential part of the learning process.

All three aspects of assessment still need to happen but we are thinking differently about the relationship between them.

Assessment of learning describes the institutional quality assurance processes that lead to students acquiring some form of verified credential.

Assessment for learning is the overall learning design, ensuring we are assessing the right things at the right time with plenty of formative opportunities to feed forward. This is the cog wheel making everything revolve.

Assessment as learning is a learning experience where the formative and summative elements work well together. Tasks appear relevant, students can see what they have gained by undertaking the activity, they feel involved in a dialogue about standards and evidence and the continuous development approach helps with issues of stress and workload for staff and students.

Text description for assessment with purpose graphic

Purple centre - the inner circle represents assessment for learning the institutional quality-assured processes that lead to a qualification.

The middle cog represents assessment for learning learning design emphasising formative opportunities that feed forward to future improvement.

The outer circle represents assessment as learning the lived experience of students and staff when active learners contribute to decision-making and are able to monitor and regulate their own learning.

Beyond the Technology podcast

Listen to our series on rethinking assessment and feedback from the Beyond the Technology podcast:

Introducing the seven principles

Educational principles are a way of summarising your shared educational values as a college or university. They serve to guide the design of learning teaching and assessment.

A well-thought-out set of principles:

Describes a shared set of values and a vision

Summarises and simplifies a lot of research evidence on good pedagogic practice

Provides a benchmark for monitoring progress

Serves as a driver for change

Principles offer a robust way of gaining ownership and buy-in and they need to be written in a way that requires action rather than passive acceptance.

Our seven principles

1. Help learners understand what good looks like by engaging learners with the requirements and performance criteria for each task

2. Support the personalised needs of learners by being accessible, inclusive and compassionate

3. Foster active learning by recognising that engagement with learning resources, peers and tutors can all offer opportunities for formative development

4. Develop autonomous learners by encouraging self-generated feedback, self-regulation, reflection, dialogue and peer review

5. Manage staff and learner workload effectively by having the right assessment, at the right time, supported by efficient business processes

6. Foster a motivated learning community by involving students in decision-making and supporting staff to critique and develop their own practice

7. Promote learner employability by assessing authentic tasks and promoting ethical conduct

Applying the principles

The principles offer an actionable way to improve learning teaching and assessment and can be applied to any aspect of learning design.

There is no one size fits all approach. You need to decide what the principle means in your context and how best to apply it to the learning experience in your organisation. Our self-assessment template (.docx) allows you to adapt the principles to your own context. You can also download the self-assessment template as a pdf.

Do principles change over time?

Principles need to evolve over time if they are to reflect current education research and remain aspirational and a call to action.

The usefulness of educational principles drew widespread attention when Professor David Nicol published a set of principles for good assessment feedback practice as part of the Re-Engineering Assessment Practices (REAP) project in 2007.

Many education providers saw the value and adopted the idea so there are various sets of principles in the public domain ( see ESCAPE assessment principles pdf). Almost all of them are based on the basic REAP principles.

Our 2021 principles reflect the greater prominence of issues such as accessibility and inclusivity in current thinking. Where we continue to champion examples of good practice that were recognised some time ago, it is with a new perspective on why and how certain approaches are more effective than others.

It is too early to judge how long this set of principles will last. At the moment they represent a call to action and a manifesto for change. We very much hope to find that in five years time they are no longer aspirational and require another refresh.

Related resources

Designing learning and assessment in a digital age - A primer created for university leaders exploring the current and future opportunities for digital assessment.

QAA Hallmarks of Success Playbook: Assessment in digital and blended pedagogy - A useful guide to develop a shared understanding of assessment and feedback practices that are relevant to and support teaching and learning. It examines what success looks like in a digital and blended environment, barriers that may be encountered and how they can be overcome. The playbook can be used to drive discussions about assessment as learning, feedback and feedforward practices, as well as considering quality enhancement, moderation and academic integrity.

Assessment ideas for an AI-enabled world (.pptx) - Codesigned with the sector, we've produced a set of postcards to provoke discussion and reflection around assessment approaches in higher education. Each idea postcard outlines the type of assessment task, key characteristics and appropriate formats.

Principle one - help learners understand what good looks like

Why is this important?

Students undertaking an assessment need to understand what is required of them and the criteria against which their performance will be judged.

This sounds self-evident but many learners find it difficult to derive this information from the available sources such as course and module handbooks. Even where criteria and grade descriptors are provided, they may be couched in academic language that requires some skill to interpret.

It helps to have a common template for assignment briefs, so that the essential information is presented, in plain English, in a consistent way for each assignment.

Feedback for learning: a comprehensive guide, an e-book by FeedbackFruits, gives useful guidance on designing rubrics that support active learning. It explains how to create a rubric that is relevant, unambiguous and serves as a bridge to future performance by avoiding traps that can result in a rubric becoming a task-focused checklist.

By implementing this principle you will, however, take this a step further and engage students in activities that allow them to create meaning from the criteria and engage in discussions about quality. You may ask them to rewrite criteria in their own words and compare their understanding with that of others. Later they may even define the criteria by which they think their work should be judged.

The role of feedback

The capacity to recognise and interpret feedback, and use this to lead to further improvement, is key to developing the ability to recognise what good looks like

Feedback provides information about where a learner is in relation to their learning goals so that they can evaluate progress, identify gaps or misconceptions and take action that results in enhanced performance in future.

Feedback should be constructive, specific, honest and supportive.

Effective feedback shouldn't only focus on current performance or be used to justify a grade. It should also feed forward in an actionable way so the learner understands what they need to focus on in order to improve.

Feedback is conventionally thought of as a dialogue between student and tutor but it can come from a variety of sources. Self and peer feedback can be equally valuable and we discuss this further in relation to principle number 4 develop autonomous learners.

Ipsative assessment

Ipsative assessment is the idea that, rather than evaluating a learner's performance against an external benchmark, we simply look at whether they have improved on their own previous performance. This is after all the most effective measure of learning gain.

At University College London this approach is proving useful with master's level students and those studying MOOCs.

To grade or not to grade?

Defining what good looks like does not have to mean assigning a grade.

There is a school of thought that believes grading is counter-productive and diminishes students' broader curiosity about a subject. Read more about upgrading in Jesse Stommel's article.

Diverse assessment formats and different customs and practices across disciplines may distort marks. Even without these complications, experts question whether it is possible to distinguish the quality of work with the precision implied by percentage marks.

Higher education does indeed operate without grading in some areas. We recognise the value of a doctorate without questioning whether the holder achieved a few percentage points more or less than one of their counterparts.

The absence of a grade can oblige learners to focus on their feedback and encourage deeper reflection.

Technology can help

Some of the ways technology can help:

Making information about the assessed task and criteria available in digital format helps ensure it can be accessed readily on a range of devices. It also helps with applying a consistent template

Having the information in digital format allows cross-referencing to a wide range of examples

Use of digital tools makes it easier to give 'in-line feedback' so students can see to which section of their work a feedback comment refers

Digital tools can support better dialogue around feedback

Storing feedback in digital format increases the likelihood that students will refer back to the feedback in future

Digital tools that support self, peer and group evaluation are all means of actively engaging students with criteria and the process of making academic judgement. You can find examples of this in the section about putting each of our principles into practice throughout this guide

Putting the principle into practice

Guidance and templates

Sheffield Hallam University makes all of its guidance and templates available via its assessment essentials website.

Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has developed guidance on assessment grading, criteria and marking (pdf). This helps ensure consistency across the organisation. MMU uses an app to make this information available to students via any mobile device.

The University of Reading's A-Z of assessment methods (pdf) can help you choose an appropriate type of assessment

Adaptive comparative judgement

Assessing a piece of work objectively against a rubric is not easy even for an experienced evaluator.

Comparative judgement works on the principle that people make better judgements if they compare two items, and decide which is better, than if they try to evaluate something in isolation.

Repeated comparison of pairs ultimately allows the items to be rank ordered. This usually takes nine to 12 rounds of comparison.

Adaptive comparative judgement (ACJ) tools automate the process of presenting a group of assessors with pairs to compare. The items are initially selected randomly. Comparison between very good and very bad is obvious very quickly. The computer algorithm can then start to select the pairs that will most improve the reliability of the ranking so more effort goes into assessing those that are closely matched.

Research has been undertaken using this technique to compare the evaluative judgement of staff and students. It has also been applied to using artificial intelligence (AI) to partly automate marking of complex items such as essay scripts.

The most common application is, however, in engaging students with assessment criteria and 'learning by evaluating' to identify what good looks like.

Using ACJ tools to provide peer evaluation and feedback can provide learners with a rich body of evidence to help them improve their work.

ACJ is being used at many universities internationally. In the UK examples include use at Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Manchester.

The technique is explained in this presentation and session recording, which includes a case study from the University of Manchester.

Developing research skills at the University of Waterloo

Students undertaking an education degree at the University of Waterloo have the opportunity to gain a research credential in their specialist area during their work experience placement.

To gain the credential, the students have to assess their own research against a research skill development framework and demonstrate, during a capstone interview, the evidence why their experience merits special recognition.

The process is supported by a structured workbook in the e-portfolio that allows students to engage with the assessment framework before, during, and after their individual research experiences. The workbook acts as the basis for receiving personal guidance and feedback to support independent study.

"Engaging in this work reinforced how influential even a small degree of reflection and feedback can be in supporting student success. Implementing these changes required minimal additional effort but had huge impact on the students' ability to relate their experiences to the assessment framework."
Jeremy Steffler, University of Waterloo

Read more about this University of Waterloo case study.

Principle two - support the personalised needs of learners

There is no such thing as a standard learner. Disability, neurodiversity, cultural and religious background, work and family commitments and personal preference all play a part in shaping our experience of learning.

Moreover, these factors combine to make the learning experience individual. Disabled students are no more a homogenous group than learners that have been bundled together under the unhelpful label BAME (black and minority ethnic). In March 2021, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities recommended that the UK government stop using the term BAME. The government is currently considering its response to the Commission's 24 recommendations.

Accessible and inclusive

Good assessment and feedback practice should allow a learner to apply their own individuality to demonstrating their knowledge and competencies.

We are increasingly aware of the need to make assessment accessible ie to ensure that people with disabilities do not face barriers because of the format or tools used. We need to promote similar awareness of the benefits of making it fully inclusive ie fair and equal to all students regardless of their diverse backgrounds.

Offering different means to demonstrate achievement of a learning outcome is an important way to comply with disability discrimination legislation. Applying this as a design principle goes further and enhances the overall assessment process to benefit all students.

Assessment designers need to be familiar with the law relating to accessibility and related guidelines such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). For example, offering a digital paper as an alternative to hardcopy examination is only useful and legally compliant, if the digital copy meets accessibility compliance regulations. Software and resources used for digital assessment are legally required to meet the compliance standards. This needs to be considered in purchasing decisions and in-house development.

The emphasis on inclusivity relates to a broad agenda to ensure that our curricula are not skewed - for example to a particularly 'white' view of the world. There is much good work being undertaken on decolonising curricula and we need to ensure that assessment design reflects a global, multicultural perspective on the subject matter.

Compassionate pedagogy

Since the start of the pandemic there have been growing calls for us to develop more 'compassionate pedagogy'.

As online classes have taken us into one another's homes, teachers have gained a different kind of understanding of the conditions under which students study and the competing demands of work and family they have to juggle.

Digital poverty is only one aspect of this, time pressures and access to a suitable place to study are equally relevant and need to be factored into how we design learning and assessment.

Inclusivity means that no one's socio-economic background should be a barrier to learning.

Promoting mental health and wellbeing

Promoting mental wellbeing is high on the agenda amid survey evidence from higher education that both student and staff mental health has declined in recent years. Assessment points are often the trigger for stress and anxiety related illness.

An approach that allows for individual needs, and is founded on compassion for the learner, can help.

This is a topic that cuts across a number of our principles. Implementing principles number five: manage staff and learner workload effectively and number six: foster a motivated learning community will also have a positive impact.

Some of the ways technology can help

Using digital tools makes it easier to implement universal design for learning (UDL) guidelines by providing multiple channels and options for engagement with learning and assessment activities.

Digital technology offers a vast range of assistive tools that allow learners to respond to the same activity or content in a way that is adapted to their personal needs. Examples include screen readers and braille keyboards for blind students, video and audio captioning for learners with hearing problems, the ability to change font size and colour to support dyslexic students or certain types of visual impairment. Some locked down virtual desktops and third-party tools used for summative assessment do not permit the use of the assistive technologies required by some learners. This is an issue that should be fully investigated before using such tools.

Aside from these adaptations, taking a summative assessment in familiar surroundings using familiar digital tools, may prove less stressful than a traditional example setting for many learners. In some cases, formal examinations may be one of the rare occasions where a student uses a pen.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is enabling the development of 'adaptive' learning tools that respond dynamically to student responses in order to personalise learning pathways. Their main use is in formative testing. For example, a student can be presented with progressively more difficult questions based on what they answer correctly.

We are increasingly used to technology providing us with friendly reminders when we need to do something in many aspects of our lives. Digital tools provide various ways to give learners 'nudges' and reminders about upcoming deadlines and important due dates via email, text, mobile app or reminders in the VLE, helping to provide clarity and alleviate stress.

Putting the principle into practice

Making large classes feel small

A decade ago, the University of Sydney was unable to find a tool that could help solve the problem of engaging students with feedback and giving them personal care when cohorts could consist of thousands of students and learners felt lost in the crowd.

They developed a student relationship engagement system (SRES) which integrates with any learning management system using LTI and is now freely available to other universities. SRES is described as a 'Swiss army knife for instructors'.

Today over 3,000 teachers are using SRES across more than a thousand courses at the University of Sydney. There were over a million student interactions with the portal in 2021 and 92.4% rated it as helpful. This is enhancing the learning experience of almost all 75,000 students at the University of Sydney with many more users worldwide.

Text description for elements of the student relationship engagement system (SRES) approach diagram

Top row title is evaluative judgement with self assessment, peer feedback, teacher feedback and rubrics underneath

Second row title is developing feedback literacy with appreciating feedback, making judgements, managing affect and taking action underneath

Beneath these two rows is listed positive relationships, which results from the factors in the other boxes being implemented

This diagram shows the elements that are important in contemporary approaches to helping students get the most out of assessment and feedback. Most importantly, they all exist within a wrapper of positive relationships with the tutor and others in the learning community.

SRES allows tutors to curated data from various sources in tailored dashboards that tell them what they need to know in order to best support their particular learners.

Data about logins and grades can be accompanied by other information that helps the instructor get to know the students. This could involve asking students about their preferences, what helps them learn and even their dreams and ambitions. Another example is that students can record an audio clip of how to pronounce their name.

These questions are embedded in the learning management system (using LTI) so to the learner they appear seamlessly alongside an introductory course in module information.

Highly personalised feedback can be created within the context of data such as whether the student has submitted on time or how they say they are feeling.

SRES also helps turn feedback into a dialogic process. Before submitting an assignment, students can say what they would most like feedback on, so they are primed to be more likely to engage with that feedback. Tutors can also close the feedback loop by asking students to respond and say what they thought about the feedback and what they will do differently next time. It is also possible to hide the grade until the student has responded to the feedback.

SRES also supports a wide range of peer-to-peer feedback activities.

Another use is to facilitate learning from both self and peer feedback. The portal can present results of student self-assessment alongside the evaluation given by their peers encouraging them to reflect on how this makes them feel and how they plan to improve on the next task as a result.

Closing the attainment gap at Brunel University

Brunel University implemented digital open book assessments as a response to the pandemic and discovered that this helped close the attainment gap for certain students. Students who entered the University with BTEC qualifications, particularly black students with a BTEC, did significantly better in terms of degree outcome than in previous years.

This improvement can be attributed to the change in assessment practice with the open book format being similar to their prior experience. Closed book examinations tend to benefit students with A-level qualifications who are used to being assessed in this way.

"Instead of sitting in a sports hall for three hours and having to rely on memory, students were able to use any resources available to complete the task - something that is probably more akin to what those with BTECs would have done previously."
Mariann Rand-Weaver, Brunel University

Read the full case study in Jisc's rethinking assessment report.

Supporting remote placement students

At Murdoch University hundreds of nursing students each year undertake a rural or remote clinical placement often up to 3000 km from home.

This placement may be the first time that the student is away from family, friends and normal support structures for an extended period. The staff member monitoring the student's progress is rarely in the same location as the student and internet connectivity cannot always be relied upon.

The University uses its PebblePad e-portfolio tool to help connect with, and support, the learners.

As a result of codesign discussions with students, compulsory reflective assessments about their clinical experiences, have moved from written format to video blogs. Students can record the vlog anywhere and upload them to PebblePad later to be shared with on-site and remote assessors.

These 'vlogs' allow for individual creativity and personal connection as the tutors are now using the vlog format to provide feedback to the learners.

Beyond the Technology podcast

In our podcast on rethinking assessment and feedback, Danny Liu and Benjamin Miller speak about how they are adapting their assessment and feedback practices at the University of Sydney and how their use of the student relationship engagement system (SRES) has helped to solve the problem of engaging a large number of students with personalised feedback.

Principle three - foster active learning

Active learning has been a key tenet of curriculum design and learning space design for several years. Approaches to teaching have evolved in response to evidence that techniques such as lecturing, in contexts where students are passive recipients of information, are highly ineffective.

Building in formative assessment opportunities greatly enhances the effectiveness of learning activities.

The use of quizzes delivered via mobile devices during lectures, is a common example.

Active engagement with learning resources

We tend to think of active learning as something that involves interaction with a teacher or with peers but engagement with learning resources also offers opportunity for learners to evaluate their own understanding.

Interactive questions embedded in online textbooks is an emerging area that has considerable potential for learning enhancement.

Even in the absence of sophisticated digital tools, teachers can include discussion points for example by linking the prompts to a discussion thread in material on the learning platform.

Research by Professor David Nicol at the University of Glasgow suggests we have previously focused too much on feedback comments, and the dialogue around them, as the main mechanism by which students evaluate the quality of their own work. He believes that comparison with learning resources can be equally valuable in building student capacity to plan, evaluate, develop and regulate their own learning.

Time to revise

An area that receives little attention in learning design is how students prepare themselves for summative assessment. What revision strategies do they employ and what resources do they use?

The Open University, UK recognises this and carries out an annual survey on student experience of assessment, feedback and revision (SEFAR). It concludes that revision and examination represents a distinct phase of learning but it remains challenging to determine effective analytics for this phase that can help inform better learning design.

The most conclusive finding was that the use of sample papers for practice appears to improve exam question literacy. Conversely, lack of engagement with these resources could be a trigger that a student requires some targeted support.

Some of the ways technology can help

The use of quizzes delivered via mobile devices during lectures, is a well-known example of formative testing. It can be used to check whether most students have grasped key concepts and allow the lecturer to adapt the session if further explanation is required.

Interactive questions embedded in online textbooks is a more recent development. Research shows this type of practice question can significantly enhance learning compared to straightforward reading of text

Video resources can be very engaging but difficult to navigate. Digital tools that help students bookmark and add notes to particular sections, foster active learning and aid revision.

Putting the principle into practice
The Doer Effect
Research from Carnegie Mellon University suggests a causal relationship between students doing practice questions while reading and enhanced learning outcomes. This phenomenon, known as the ' doer effect ' has been replicated in very large-scale studies in other US universities. The studies show that formative practice enhances the learning effect by a factor of six compared to simple reading of the text.

The research findings are very clear. The main factor inhibiting embedding such practice questions in every online textbook is the work needed to generate the questions. A textbook for a semester long module may require hundreds or thousands of questions requiring both subject matter and question item authoring expertise.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a promising solution to this problem. A research study (pdf) based on well over three quarters of a million student-question interactions showed no significant difference in the difficulty of, or student engagement with, questions written by subject matter experts and those generated using AI.
Interactive presentation
Universities using Feedback Fruits software have access to a tool known as interactive presentation. The tutor can upload video content, such as a pre-recorded lecture, and lock specific moments in the timeline with practice questions.

Students have to answer these questions before they can continue to watch the rest of the video.

The teacher has access to an analytics dashboard to see which questions students struggle with.
Synote
Synote is an award-winning, open source application developed at the University of Southampton that makes video resources easier to access, search, manage and exploit.

Imagine trying to use a textbook that has no contents page, index or page numbers. Lengthy video recordings, such as recorded lectures, can be equally difficult for students to navigate.

Synote allows students to bookmark particular sections of a recording and associate their notes with the correct section. Students can also take live notes during lectures, using Twitter, on any mobile device then upload them into Synote so they can be synchronised with a recording of the lecture.

Principle four - develop autonomous learners

It is often said that one reason students tend to express a relatively high level of satisfaction with lectures, is the fact that they don't need to do anything during a lecture.

The remark is not entirely tongue-in-cheek. Tutors frequently complain that students see themselves as passive recipients of learning content. Similarly, in relation to assessment, some learners view it as the tutor's role to deliver feedback to them.

Developing students' ability to self-regulate and manage their own learning is a key goal of effective learning and assessment design. We also touch on this in relation to principle number one help learners understand what good looks like and principle number three foster active learning.

Activities that involve reflection and self, peer and group evaluation all work towards this goal.

The power of comparison

Many studies have observed that students appear to learn more from generating feedback for their peers than they do from engaging with peer feedback comments provided for them.

Research by Professor David Nicol, at the University of Glasgow, suggests this is because when students review their peers' work, after producing their own, they make comparisons of the peer's work with their own and this activates powerful internal feedback. Such comparisons can generate valuable learning whether the work of the peer is stronger or weaker than the reviewer's own.

A study comparing peer and tutor feedback (Nicol and McCallum 2021) found that students of all abilities were able to identify all areas for improvement that the tutor identified as well as areas that the tutor did not mention. However, to match the tutor feedback, the students had to make multiple sequential comparisons (ie compare more than one peer work with their own).

This research suggests that well-structured peer review activities can reduce teacher workload and generate more and better feedback for learners.

Self-paced learning

Most educators recognise the importance of developing learners' capacity to self-regulate and the role that engagement with feedback plays in this. Our efforts in this area are however, sometimes at odds with a fixed regime of content delivery via lectures and a rigid assessment schedule. Inevitably, some learners struggle to keep up whilst others are insufficiently challenged.

Higher education could do more to encourage self-pacing within bounded limits, such as an individual module. Students could be allowed to test their knowledge when they feel ready and resubmit until they have mastered a topic.

There may be lessons to be learned in this area from the school sector. The modern classroom project suggests the following classification of learning and assessment activities:

Must do: non-negotiable tasks covering core concepts and essential skills

Should do: valuable opportunities to develop skills that will not prevent the student transitioning to the next stage of learning if there is a good reason for them to be excused

Aspire to do: extensions for students who have already mastered the normal scope of the topic

Analytics to track progress help ensure that the group as a whole is on track. Sharing of aspects of goal setting and tracking can help students identify others to collaborate with or who can provide help.

Policies such as 'ask three (peers) before me' can encourage peer learning.

Similarly, assignment briefs can be split in two with half of the group addressing each aspect of the topic then teaching and learning from peers who did the opposite assignment.

Some of the ways technology can help

Early attempts to implement peer review found it could be time consuming to administer. Digital tools make it possible to implement peer review activities at scale.

Features such as allocation of reviews, linking to assessment criteria, managing anonymity and tracking which students have completed the work, are all easier in the digital environment.

Use of the open standard LTI means that tools supporting self, peer and group review can be seamlessly integrated into the learning management system.

Putting the principle into practice

Peer assessment at VU Amsterdam

Students in pharmaceutical sciences at VU Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit) undertake peer assessment of one another's reports as a mandatory pass/fail part of their course2.

The exercise is structured so that the students are undertaking the peer assessment individually but the report they are evaluating is the work of a group of three students.

The students are required to address each of the assessment criteria so the feedback is complete. Use of technology enables direct linking to the assessment criteria and enforcing the requirement to address each criterion.

Learners are also required to rate the quality of the feedback they receive from other peer reviewers.

This activity engages learners with the assessment criteria and also encourages them to reflect on the process of giving good quality feedback.

Feedback given by students matches well with instructor feedback. This means staff time can be saved by monitoring a random sample to ensure quality is being maintained.

This approach, whereby engagement with the feedback process feedback is an individual responsibility, works much better than previous initiatives where groups gave feedback on other groups.

"Unlike in previous years, there were no longer any complaints about the feedback process."
Jort Harmsen, VU Ansterdam

Two stage examinations

It is not unusual for a learner to walk out of a formal examination and immediately think of something they should have done differently. Normally it's too late but what if you had the chance to put it right?

Research by Professor David Nicol and colleagues at the University of Glasgow has taken this idea step further and researched the impact of a two-stage examination structure3.

In their model a student takes an exam and then completes reflective questions to surface their internal feedback about their performance. They are asked to identify any weaknesses they are aware of and any aspects of their work on which they would like to have expert feedback.

The students then take the same exam again but this time working in groups.

At the end of this stage, they answer another set of reflective questions, for example, about how the group answer differed from their own, whether the group discussion made them aware of strengths and weaknesses of their own answer that they hadn't identified and which answer they thought was better.

The purpose of this study was to find out more about how students generate inner feedback through comparisons. The finding was that this process is very powerful.

The fact that students undertook the work individually and reflected on their performance before engaging in dialogue, served to start them generating inner feedback so they gained greater value from the group discussion. The key to harnessing inner feedback is to make the process explicit using reflective questions to which students must respond in writing.

The researchers believe that the findings have broad applicability and that providing a rubric or high-quality exemplars as comparators could equally help students better evaluate the quality of their own work.

Professional learning passport for teachers

The Education Workforce Council (EWC) is the independent regulator for the education workforce in Wales. It has developed a professional learning passport (PLP) to enable newly qualified teachers to capture their learning and development and receive support from mentors.

EWC developed the passport using its e-portfolio tool. Teachers can capture any learning or experience that shows they are developing competence against the professional standards for teaching and leadership. Teachers reflect on experience, and plan learning in areas that need development, in an organic way that feels quite natural and unlike many formal assessment practices.

This approach prompts new teachers to consider all the learning experiences that occur during their working days from moments in the classroom, to discussion with colleagues, to formal training opportunities - and reflect on how these impact on their development as professionals and their teaching practice. The completed PLP enables the teacher to present their learning and development journey.

Principle five - manage staff and learner workload effectively

We need to ensure we are assessing the things that matter and doing so in a way that allows the student learning from each assignment to feed forward into future tasks.

Common problems to avoid are over-assessment and assessment bunching.

A programme of study is likely to be broken down into smaller modules. Each module will have its own learning outcomes and there may be overlap between them. If each module team designs its own assessment without reference to the overall picture, you may find that some learning outcomes are assessed multiple times and that assignments are 'bunched' at particular times of year.

Learners are not able to produce their best work if they have multiple assignments to complete within a short timeframe. A group of student union officers known as the academic integrity collective points to overassessment and bunching as factors that may panic students into cheating.

This type of bunching also puts stress on staff marking and grading the assignments.

We also need the right balance between formative and summative assessment. Applying our principles means designing in formative opportunities where students can generate feedback from a variety of sources and act upon it to feed forward into the future learning.

Students and staff should spend most of their working time on tasks related to enhancing learning. This means business processes need to allow them to access the information they need, submit assignments, enter marks and feedback and view information from different sources, easily and quickly.

Academic staff working with badly designed business processes often describe themselves as being on a treadmill with no time to stop and reflect how things might be done better.

Staff also need to be supported to use the available tools. For example, assignments submitted electronically by students may be printed out by the staff marking and grading them. There could be many advantages to marking online if staff were given the necessary tools and shown how to adjust the view to suit themselves and take advantage of features such as 'quick mark' options.

Some of the ways technology can help

Understanding the curriculum

A description of the curriculum in digital format can allow you to get an overview using only basic analysis, such as number and type of assignments per module, to see where some learners may be being over assessed.

A similar overview of assessment dates will reveal assignment bunching.

Personalising information

Many institutions now use apps that provide students with a personalised overview of administrative information such as timetable, assignment due dates etc that can help them manage their workload better.

For staff, it is increasingly common to have a personalised dashboard view showing the status of assignment tasks and their priority.

Workload management

Online workflows make it easier to manage team marking across large cohorts.

Digital feedback tools offer the possibility to reuse/adapt frequent comments to save tutors time.

Digital tools offer possibilities to generate and mark questions for both formative and summative development. The type of questions that can be created and automatically marked using the QTI (question test interoperability) open standard go far beyond basic multiple-choice and can include evaluation of what higher-order skills learners are using to come up with their answer.

Putting the principle into practice

Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA)

TESTA has produced guidance on revised assessment patterns that work.

The University of Greenwich map my assessment tool helps with planning, identifying clashes and modelling the consequences of change. The tool is available for others to use.

One-stop-shop EMA (electronic management of assessment) solution at the University of Wolverhampton

The University of Wolverhampton used the Jisc assessment and feedback life-cycle to help its analysis and planning to create an end to end solution for EMA (electronic management of assessment).

This 'one-stop shop' is built around the core tools of the Canvas learning management system and Turnitin academic integrity solution. The Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) open standard is used to facilitate seamless interoperability throughout the workflow.

An assessment centre provides staff with an overview of all assessment tasks in their courses.

Staff can select and mark work from the assessment centre and are provided with information about approaching marking deadlines. They can also see whether marks and feedback have been published to the student record system and the students.

The project experienced few technical difficulties and focused much of its time on defining policy and addressing some inconsistencies in marking practice.

View a set of presentation slides and watch the session recording on this case study.

Timely feedback for large classes

The University of Utrecht department of law faces a 'massiveness' problem.

The department has 800 new students each year and the current learning design requires them to complete an essay each week. Feedback and grades must be returned within three days in order to feed into the next assignment.

This has to be managed with a team of two professors and 25 'correctors' who provide feedback. The correctors are a combination of assistant professors, teaching assistants and third-year students.

The University has implemented Revise.ly feedback software to help solve this problem. The correctors use a shared comment set to ensure that the approach to feedback is consistent no matter who does the marking. Although the role translates as 'corrector' in English, all comments use a 'feed forward' approach to help with future improvement.

The tool is integrated into the learning management system using the LTI open standard. It can be used on any device and fits easily into the existing workflow, including incorporating it into workflows involving plagiarism-checking or peer-review.

Learners find the approach very helpful because the feedback is readily accessible and the structured approach means they can search what type of comments they want to see (eg focus on structure) and review this type of comment across different assignments. The search function was added at the request of the students.

Enhancing the effectiveness of personal tutoring at the University of Cumbria

Personal academic tutoring is an important feature in helping students adjust to university life and develop their academic potential.

The University of Cumbria supports 10,000 students a year in this way and turned to technology to address inconsistencies across different parts of the University.

Each learner now has a workbook in the e-portfolio system that is used to provide clarity and structure to the personal tutoring process and a more supported experience for the students.

An introductory 'About You' page allows students to provide background information about themselves. Each of the 30 minute meetings has a separate page and, in advance of each meeting, students are prompted to fill in questions that give useful pointers for discussion.

During the meeting, or immediately afterwards, the personal tutor adds notes summarising the discussion and providing signposting for the student to further help and support where appropriate.

Find out more about the University of Cumbria's experience of enhancing personal tutoring.

Principle six - foster a motivated learning community

This ties in with principle number two support the personalised needs of learners. Involving students in discussions around assessment practice helps make it more inclusive and allows students who may face barriers, for example, due to a disability, to voice their concerns.

Assessment literacy

Institutions commonly focus on developing learners' study skills, graduate attributes and digital literacies but none of these fully addresses student understanding of, and engagement in, the assessment process.

Study skills resources tend to help students develop their assessment 'technique' through essay writing, presentation and preparing for exams rather than understanding the nature and purpose of assessment and feedback practice.

Engaging students as active participants in making academic judgement develops their assessment literacy and gives assessment a sense of purpose which is motivating.

Participating in discussions about assessment approaches, criteria and standards can help develop students' academic judgement as well as developing skills important for employability. Self and peer review activities are the most active way of allowing students to practice making evaluative judgements.

Developing academic practice

It is just as important for staff to reflect on their assessment and feedback practice as it is for students to strive to improve their own performance.

New findings from education research and advances in technology may offer improved ways of implementing good practice even if the underlying pedagogy is still sound.

Course and module teams may spend a lot of time discussing approaches at the curriculum design stage only for assessment and feedback to be left to personal choice.

Feedback is the area that most often takes place in a 'black box'. There may be little or no team discussion leading to inconsistency of approach and variation in the quality and quantity of tutor feedback.

Tutors who haven't had the opportunity to discuss feedback practice with colleagues may produce feedback that is skewed towards either praise or correction or short-term and focused on the task in hand rather than developmental.

Despite rigorous quality processes, marking and grading may still be subjective. In the absence of whole team approaches, tutors may develop tacit and personalised standards that lead to inconsistency and inequality for learners.

Listening to the student voice can reveal how the lived experience of assessment and feedback practice matches the expectation of course designers.

Some of the ways technology can help

Our digital experience insights surveys can play a part by showing how your students and staff are using the technology you offer, what is making a difference to their learning and working experiences and where improvements can be made.

Digital tools supporting self, peer and group evaluation can help develop student assessment literacy.

Digital storage of marks and feedback can simplify analysis to identify anomalies. Analytics about the types, quantity and timeliness of tutor feedback can stimulate discussion about what is most appropriate in each context and the equity of the learning experience across an institution.

Online communities of practice permit sharing of experience across a wider network than a single course or institution. Sometimes it can be easier to share ideas and get an objective view on a hard-to-solve problems with colleagues who are removed from the working practices and day-to-day politics of your own institution.

Putting the principle into practice

Find out more about our change agent network supporting student staff partnerships across the UK.

University College London (UCL) is one of the active participants in the network. The University has established a central team of digital assessment advisors and runs 'assessment mythbusting' town hall events and assessment 'hackathons'. UCL also has appointed a group of student assessment design advisors to help develop and pilot new forms of assessment. Find out more about UCL's partnership approach to assessment transformation.

Streamlining global teacher training

The University of Sunderland runs an international teacher training course which attracts students from 60 countries. Assessment used to include a lesson observation carried out face-to-face in the classroom.

Improvement in the reliability of videoconferencing tools enabled the course team to develop the VEDA (video enhanced dialogic assessment) approach which won a university teaching award. This allows the lesson observation to be either recorded or live streamed.

Use of the open standard LTI Deep Linking allows the session to be recorded using the Panopto lecture capture tool and uploaded straight to the Canvas VLE (virtual learning environment). Data protection compliance is important as the videos contain images of children.

Course leader, Elizabeth Hidson found not only did this online viva-voce style assessment save on time and travel costs, it also facilitated improved professional judgement. Assessors spent more time and energy in the online space than was possible at the back of the classroom and the dialogue stimulated better reflective practice.

"Our ideas of 'evidence' have become more sophisticated and holistic based on better quality dialogue and professional judgements."
Elizabeth Hidson, University of Sunderland

The initiative was introduced as a response to the pandemic but, as the candidate usually bears the cost of the assesser's visit, there is interest in offering this option in future.

Assessing the process of thinking

We tend to focus on immediate peers when we talk about learning communities but academic development is also taking place at scale. Across France open standards and data science are being applied to improve assessment practice.

The French ministry of education uses digital technology to develop more authentic ways to measure traditional competencies and 21st-century skills.

These assessments don't only provide information about whether the answer is correct. They capture a rich set of data that reveal the students' thought processes.

Solving problems in mathematics and science requires students to use cross-curricular skills such as calculating, modelling, and scientific reasoning. Until recently, it has been difficult to measure these skills because traditional math and science assessments contain test items that are scored, based on a student's final answer.

Using an extension of the open standard QTI (question and test interoperability), the ministry is developing PCIs (portable custom interactions) to deploy authentic assessments that measure skills such as creativity, problem solving, collaboration and critical reasoning. The questions cover a wide range of types including game-like situations and interaction with chat bots to measure creativity.

Researchers make sense of a vast amount of data derived from these digital tests by defining patterns based on what knowledge and skills are involved in answering each question and common types of error.

In simple terms, there is a difference between the activity pattern of a student who has conceptual understanding and knows how to apply it in context and another who achieves the same answer via trial and error or guesswork.

Large-scale research has the potential to deliver valuable insights to help learning designers. Read about large-scale mathematics assessment in France (pdf).

More immediately, the examples of authentic question types openly shared, can provide inspiration and a rich reference source for others to use.

If you thought that item banks and automated marking could only be used with very basic multiple-choice questions (MCQs) think again.

View a set of presentation slides and watch the session recording on this case study.

Our thinking is influenced by Dr Yong Zhao. He suggests education, rather than trying to fix perceived 'deficits', by measuring against prescribed standards, should be cultivating individual strengths.

Employability, viewed from this perspective, can be seen as the ability to translate your uniqueness into value for others.

If higher education is to remain relevant in a changing world, it needs to demonstrate that our learning and assessment practices prepare people for the world of work and participation in democratic society.

Authentic assessment

There are frequent calls for assessment to become more 'authentic'. By this we mean that the tasks which are assessed should reflect things the learner may have to do in real life.

Traditional assessment formats, such as essays or exams, don't really mirror any other real-world situations.

Authentic assessment doesn't only apply in subjects we traditionally think of as 'vocational'. The skills we can test using formats such as closed book exams, which rely heavily on recall, are an equally poor fit with the working practices of academics or researchers of the future.

Authentic tasks are more likely to focus on deeper learning and the learner's ability to apply their knowledge and skills. Give the learner some agency in deciding the topic and medium to be assessed, and you are moving towards the ideal of creating value from individual uniqueness.

Promoting ethical conduct

Academic misconduct features high amongst institutional concerns about assessment practice.

There is a perception that cheating and collusion are easier in the digital environment. However, such practices are generally only possible where the assessed task lends itself to finding an answer ready prepared. This is especially true now that the practice of purchasing an assignment written to order by an 'essay mill' has been outlawed.

Not only is it harder to cheat at authentic tasks, they provide a sound foundation for a discussion of ethical practice. Academic writing and referencing can appear arcane whereas giving credit to the work of others in the world of business is a more familiar concept to introduce an understanding of ethics.

The University of Exeter has created guidance on designing work integrated assessment.

This is a topic that cuts across a number of our principles:

Principle number one, help learners understand what good looks like is relevant. Student engagement with the performance criteria can help develop an understanding of the importance of acknowledging source material and intellectual property rights

Principle number five, manage staff and learner workload effectively is important as pressure of over assessment can be a reason why students cheat

Putting the principle into practice

Our employability toolkit is a good starting point to find guidance and examples.

Policing a virtual shopping centre

The University of Northampton is using online scenarios to replace in-person training exercises for apprentice police officers. Videos of alleged robbery, shoplifting and suspicious activity in a shopping centre are accessed via the virtual learning environment (VLE).

Student responses to the scenarios are discussed in group webinar sessions which means that, for the first time, the whole class can learn from the experience.

The University has also created a mock courtroom scenario. Police apprentices present statements and are cross examined by two criminal barristers representing the defence and the prosecution.

Group member evaluation

In the world of work, overall team performance is as much a part of recognition and reward strategy as individual performance. Assessing a learner's contribution to group work is thus a very authentic scenario but fraught with difficulty.

At Maastricht University in the Netherlands, students in the department of data science and knowledge engineering experience authentic learning and assessment from the start of their course. The department has a philosophy of problem-based and project centred learning. Students work in groups of six to seven to solve real-world problems.

The issues that arise will be familiar to anyone who has tried group learning. Students complain that some of them work harder than others with some students failing to complete tasks or handing work in late.

It can be hard for tutors to get to the bottom of the issues as some of the complaints are contradictory. Often, they don't hear about the issues until a deadline is approaching by which point it is too late to intervene and improve the group dynamic.

The solution to the problem was to implement group member peer evaluation at a point when the group has had time to settle down but there is still time for the initiative to result in improvement.

Group member evaluation is done anonymously using a tool designed by FeedbackFruits in collaboration with a group of universities. The tool is integrated into the learning management system via LTI.

Learners have to evaluate themselves before they assess other group members. They then look at how their self-evaluation matches that of their peers and have the opportunity to discuss this with their tutor.

A rubric was developed to assist the evaluative process. The rubric has six categories: attending internal team meetings; responsibility; communication; interaction and collaboration; initiative and timely submission of assigned work. There is a descriptor equating to: acceptable; satisfactory or exemplary for each category.

Students were at first encouraged, but not obliged, to provide additional feedback in the form of a comment. It is now felt to be good practice to require further comment on a low score. The reason behind a low score on attendance may be self-evident but a poor score for 'initiative' can be less so.

Most students value the initiative and take it seriously although some take longer to build up trust in the practice. Some timid learners have had their confidence boosted to find that peers appreciate their ideas and think they should speak up more.

View a presentation and watch the session recording about this case study.

The economics of panic buying

At Stirling University an economics exam involving 'doing the calculations by hand, from memory, in a cold sterile environment' has been replaced by real-world problems requiring flexibility and creativity to address the issues.

First year students in 2020 were required to design strategic interactions to address the pandemic. Topics ranged from panic buying, hoarding and price gouging to vaccine uptake and sharing. Students were free to use their own choice of medium including blog posts, digital posters and videos

The boss wants an answer by the end of the day

The environmental science department at Brunel University London replaced a three-hour exam with a more authentic task. Students were confronted with what it feels like to turn up for work one morning and find your boss needs a report on a complex matter by the end of the day.

The assessed task was a complex question drawing on a wide range of information encountered during the course. The students had to demonstrate their working and provide references with highlighted annotations. They had seven hours to tackle the problem.

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Principles of good assessment and feedback - Jisc

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How good learning, teaching and assessment can be applied to improving assessment and feedback practice.

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OFQUAL guidance on designing and developing accessible assessments

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OFQUAL guidance on designing and developing accessible assessments

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Guidance on designing and developing accessible assessments

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We regulate to ensure assessments give a reliable indication of what students know, understand and can do. We are guided by the best interests of students as we meet our statutory objectives, including to secure qualification and assessment standards. Students must be able to access assessments with…

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JISC guidance on making assessments accessible

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JISC guidance on making assessments accessible

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Inclusive assessment

A more recent guide from Jisc you may find useful is Rethinking Assessment. The section on 'Has assessment become more adaptable?' has content relevant to including learners with disabilities and makes reference to new legislation. Our meeting accessibility regulations page also has advice and resources.

Accessibility must be considered from the outset when designing assessments, otherwise disabled learners could be unintentionally disadvantaged.

Organisations must ensure that the assessment evaluates learning outcomes and not the speed, manual dexterity, vision, hearing, or physical endurance of the learner. There are a number of things you can do to maximise the inclusiveness and accessibility of assessment.

Personalised learning and assessment

Involving students in both their learning and assessment provides opportunities for them to influence their progress, and use their own preferred methods to access the curriculum. Contributing to the choice and design of assessments ensures that they are able to contribute fully no matter what their access needs are.

Self-assessment and peer assessment are also powerful motivational tools which can be used with most assessment techniques.

E-assessment

This allows learners to use their own assistive technologies to access questions and evidence their answers. This benefits different students in different ways, for example:

A student with motor impairments independently handling the exam paper

Blind students accessing the assessment using a screen reader

Students can personalise their view of the questions (eg, font types, sizes, colours)

Those with visual difficulties or dyslexia can adapt the appearance and layout of the text to make their reading more efficient and productive

Text-to-speech software can read questions out loud - students who are dyslexic or visually impaired can independently access the meaning of the questions or accompanying resources.

Students can also check their own progress and get instant objective feedback which will help reinforce and embed learning. This may be particularly useful for those with short term memory problems and students on the autistic spectrum who may prefer automated feedback with limited personal interaction.

Evidence-based assessment

Many professional associations such as those for medical, health and engineering now use evidence of achievement as qualification criteria for professional progression. This evidence is collated within a digital portfolio system or e-portfolio.

Using an e-portfolio enables individuals to demonstrate their competence in a personal and customised way. The restrictions of formalised testing are no longer barriers to the demonstration of achievement.

Sources of evidence can include documents produced as part of work activity, records as photographs or videos of the product or the process. Witness testimonies, assessor observations or authenticated candidate reports can be recorded using audio or video to validate the activity.

Barriers

Although e-assessment has great potential for accessible experiences the potential is not always realised. This can be due to design faults in the questions, the quiz software or the delivery platform on which the quiz sits.

Different disabled learners experience different barriers; an e-assessment that works well for a dyslexic learner may be completely inaccessible to a blind learner. Some barriers (such as poor question design) can be addressed quite quickly but others, such as accessibility issues in the quiz software or the virtual learning environment on which it sits, can be more difficult to address.

Ideally your organisation will address these issues during the procurement process when you decide what sort of systems you intend to use.

Policy and procedures

There are a series of strategic issues that the organisation needs to consider if accessibility is going to work. These include procurement, standards, user testing and the different roles and responsibilities within the organisation that make these elements work together.

Digital assessment tools are beneficial for organisations when installed across the whole provision so policies and procedures need to be in place.

These tools provide constructive data to inform an organisation's self-assessment and quality improvement process. They enable tracking of learner engagement, achievement and progression and allow learning assessment to take place more often without increasing the burden of manual marking.

System procurement

Students with disabilities can present a range of accessibility challenges for software assessment systems.

Take a coordinated approach

The procurement, installation and development of assessment systems needs to be managed in a coordinated and structured way. It is important to include the following when evaluating assessment systems:

Accessibility

Interoperability

Privacy and data protection.

Anticipating these challenges should provide more time to address them properly and ensure that they are supported by informed policies and procedures.

Anticipate and accommodate

Creating engaging assessment materials that are accessible to all learners, with or without disabilities, is considerably more difficult than creating an accessible website. It is therefore likely that even the best designed tools will have some functions that don't work with particular learners and/or certain assistive technologies.

It is essential to identify any accessibility issues in advance so that any additional support costs can be incorporated into the budget. Questions to ask before agreeing to use one particular system include:

What built-in accessibility features that exist;

Where users would find the accessibility documentation;

Which assistive technologies has the system been tested with.

If the answers are unsatisfactory you may opt for a different product rather than spend more on disability support.

Compatibility

You need to consider whether the e-assessment tool is compatible with existing tools within your organisation. Compliance with IMS global standards is crucial - interoperability may not sound exciting but can prevent an organisation locked into proprietary systems.

Roles and responsibilities

In order for accessible assessment to be embedded across the organisation, a number of different roles need to be involved and take responsibility.

Disability support

This department needs to be involved as they will provide the initial support for learners adjusting to the technology, and will also provide personal support as a result of accessibility failings in any system.

Network and systems managers

They will need to advise on interoperability and long-term trends in standards (for example the coming together of IMS global standards and EPUB3 in EDUPUB).

Quality assurance

This team needs to be involved because the choice of system may have a big impact on progression data available and integration with learning analytics tools.

Staff development and e-learning

They will need to provide guidance on the suitability of the system and the necessary training for staff.

Recording and recognising progress and achievement (RARPA)

There are many occasions when assessment needs to be summative but is not part of an accredited course.

Organisations need to have procedures in place to track, monitor and evaluate achievement and to include them in their quality assurance procedures.

Practice

Here we touch on generic good practice in feedback, question design, assistive technologies and use of rich media in quizzes. We explore RARPA and a range of assessment tools.

Well-designed assessments will allow you to assess knowledge and understanding.

Reducing barriers

All types of assessment have potential accessibility issues. A good way of exploring how to reduce barriers is to refer to the awarding bodies and how they are addressing these challenges. In 2006, we worked with a number of awarding bodies to provide accessibility in e-assessment guidelines. Although the work is old the awarding bodies are still using this guidance and Appendix 2 of the report has a list of helpful recommendations that would be relevant to a tutor.

Principles

The Higher Education Academy's summary resource on assessment is helpful for helping you think about what you want to assess and why. The publication ' A marked improvement - Transforming assessment in Higher Education' outlines excellent principles that apply across any sector. These are:

Assessment for learning (not of learning)

Ensuring assessment is fit for purpose (are you assessing achievement of intended programme outcomes?)

There are limits to the extent that standards can be articulated explicitly (there are important benefits of education which are not amenable either to the precise specification of standards or to objective assessment)

Constructing standards in communities (emphasis on assessment and feedback processes that actively engage both staff and students in dialogue about standards)

Integrating assessment literacy into course design (allow students to develop their own, internalised conceptions of standards and to monitor and supervise their own learning

Ensuring professional judgements are reliable (establishment of appropriate forums for the development and sharing of standards within and between disciplinary and professional communities)

These principles are valid for all sectors and levels of achievement, and are as useful for those teaching learners with complex needs as they are for those working in higher education.

Types and design

Feedback

Giving effective feedback is an essential part of the assessment process. It is crucial that feedback is prompt and supportive. E-assessment should have the information incorporated into the system to enable students to learn and progress as a result of the assessment.

Good constructive feedback, even in a simple question, should help the learner not only know what the best answer is but why it was best and why the others were weaker (or wrong).

One of the benefits of well-written, objective, computer-based feedback is that it removes one layer of human interaction - this can be helpful for people with mental health problems or autistic spectrum disorders as they may prefer to have factual feedback with no personal comments.

Questions

Writing effective questions for assessment is an important skill. The nature of the question you are writing demands different skills. For example, writing a good multiple choice question requires different considerations from writing a good assertion-reason question or a good gap fill question.

The Computer Aided Assessment Centre has an excellent set of guides with a range of examples that would be very effective for staff development. The design of the question will depend on the nature of the assessment.

Rich media

Embedding audio and video in assessments can add significant value for some learners (for example those with reading impairments) but create barriers for others (for example blind learners accessing visual content of videos or deaf learners accessing the audio content).

There are different ways of reducing these barriers. Audio files can have a linked transcript. Video files can have audio captions on screen or (if the audio narrative works independent of the visual content) a separate transcript of the audio. Blind learners may need an audio description of the video scenes. This is quite a specialist job and must be done carefully in order to avoid undermining the assessment objectives.

RARPA in practice

RARPA is essentially just good practice in teaching and assessment. There is a need for clear and accurate recording of achievements to benefit both the learner and the organisation.

Data on the tracking of progress will vary according to the learner and the type of achievements that they are working towards. There are a number of case studies on how to quality assure RARPA in the provision for learners with learning difficulties available on the Excellence Gateway.

Assistive technologies

Not all disabled learners will need assistive technologies in order to meet their access needs. It is helpful to think first in terms of the accessibility services that learners require. These services may be delivered via the assessment tool or separately via assistive technology.

We outline a number of different accessibility requirements and how to achieve them:

Change font and background colours

Check whether there are options in the software to do this and test those options

Check whether the change options in the operating system work in the software - find out how to change the colour scheme in Windows 7 or Windows 10 and Mac OS

Try third-party commercial or free and open source tools.

Increase the font size

Are there options within the software to do this?

If the software runs in a web browser, can you use the browser settings to increase the font size or zoom in?

Can you use the magnification options in Windows 7, Windows 10 or Mac OS?

Try third-party magnification tools.

Ensure automatic text reflow when font size is increased

Test in the software or web browser if it is browser-based

Try third-party commercial tools with optical character recognition functionality.

Navigate pages by sight and select text to read out loud

Is there a text-to-speech option in the software?

Is there a browser based text to speech plugin?

Try third-party commercial or free text-to-speech tools like Balabolka or the Southampton ATbar.

Navigate pages by audio and have text read out in an appropriate order

Third party commercial or free screenreader tools like NVDA or WindowEyes. How effectively these tools work depends on the quality of accessible design in the software.

Navigate the test and answer questions without using a mouse

Keyboard shortcuts or third party tools like switch, Eyegaze or voice recognition systems. Again, these tools are dependent on the accessibility of the software.

Describe all non-text elements (eg, images or formulae)

This is dependent on both the software and the accessibility levels specified. Describing images requires care so that the assessment objectives are not undermined. Describing formulae requires specialist knowledge and may or may not be appropriate depending on whether a blind user accesses maths through Braille or audio.

Tools

The tools a tutor might use will vary depending on the organisational policies, procedures and facilities and their intentions for the assessment.

For instance, does everything have to be tracked? Is it a summative test or a more formative opportunity to consolidate and reinforce learning? Does it need to work on a mobile phone? Are the learners creating questions and challenges for each other?

Institutional virtual learning environments like Moodle or Blackboard will provide inbuilt assessment tools. There are also a range of commercial systems available as well as free and open source tools such as Rogo from the University of Nottingham.

Other tools designed for creating courses often have interactive functionality such as Moodle and Xerte OnlineToolkits.

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Considerations and requirements for organisations when designing accessible and inclusive assessments. Inclusive assessmentA more recent guide from Jisc you may find useful is Rethinking Assessment. The section on 'Has assessment become more adaptable?' has content relevant to including learners with disabilities and makes reference to new legislation.

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Survey of mathematical software tools for visually impaired people

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Survey of mathematical software tools for visually impaired people

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Automated tools can help you understand your website's level of accessibility with the click of a button. Some tools test for different things, or are better at testing for certain things than others. So we recommend using more than one automated tool.

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Template for Accessibility Evaluation Reports

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The Website of the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative.

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How to set up and run an accessibility book club

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How to set up and run an accessibility book club

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Skip to main content

This is a collection of resources designed to help you facilitate your own Accessibility Book club.

Read the accompanying blog post [LINK] for more context about the concept, or carry on reading below to go straight to how to run one.

Suggestion for how to structure your book club

A structure that has tested well is 30 minute sessions, once a month, on an online platform like Microsoft Teams or Google Meet. Attendees suggesting books/podcasts/films, and then us voting to decide which one to discuss also works well.

It works well to have a designated facilitator per session, too, who is responsible for calendar admin, creating or finding discussion guides, and creating the poll to decide what we discuss next week.

Key resources

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Skip to main content This is a collection of resources designed to help you facilitate your own Accessibility Book club. Read the accompanying blog post [LINK] for more context about the concept, or carry on reading below to go straight to how to run one.

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Education for mental health toolkit by Advance HE

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Education for mental health toolkit by Advance HE

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Education for Mental Health Toolkit | Advance HE

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Developed as a partnership between the University of Derby, King’s College London, Aston University, Student Minds and Advance HE, and funded by the Office for Students via a Challenge Competition, this toolkit has been created to provide evidence informed guidance on the ways in which curriculum ca…

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https://matthewdeeprose.github.io/level3.html

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An intermediate level process for accessibility testing.

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W3C guidelines: Making content usable for people with cognitive and learning disabilities

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W3C guidelines: Making content usable for people with cognitive and learning disabilities

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Abstract

This document is for people who make Web content (Web pages) and Web applications. It gives advice on how to make content usable for people with learning and cognitive disabilities.

This document has content about:

people with learning and cognitive disabilities,

user needs,

user testing,

design patterns (ways) to make content usable, and

advice for policy makers.

This document builds on the Cognitive Accessibility Gap Analysis and Roadmap , Cognitive Accessibility User Research and Cognitive Accessibility Issue Papers to address user needs that are not met in technologies and accessibility guidelines.

Status of This Document
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document was published by the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group and the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group as a Updating Working Draft. This document is for people who make Web content (Web pages) and Web applications. It gives advice on how to make websites and applications that are friendly for people with cognitive impairments by providing guidance for your designs, and design process. Please find the Change log for those changes in this Updating Working Draft.

To comment, file an issue in the W3C coga GitHub repository. If this is not feasible, send email to public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org ( subscribe, archives). Comments are requested by 27 April 2020. In-progress updates to the document may be viewed in the publicly visible editors' draft.

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by groups operating under the W3C Patent Policy. The groups do not expect this document to become a W3C Recommendation. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures (Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group) and a public list of any patent disclosures (Accessibility Guidelines Working Group) made in connection with the deliverables of each group; these pages also include instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

This document is governed by the 1 March 2019 W3C Process Document.

Table of Contents

1. Abstract

2. Status of This Document

3. 1. Introduction
1.1 Background about People with Learning and Cognitive Disabilities and the Web

4. 2. Building in the User

1. 2.1 Process

2. 2.2 Usability Testing, Focus Groups and Feedback

3. 2.3 Use Cases / Persona

1. 2.3.1 Alison: An Aging User with Mild Cognitive Impairment

2. 2.3.2 Amy: A Computer Scientist who has Autism

3. 2.3.3 Anna: A Student who has Dyslexia and Poor Eye Hand Coordination

4. 2.3.4 Carolyn: A Yoga Teacher who has ADHD

5. 2.3.5 Frank: A Retired Lawyer with Dementia

6. 2.3.6 George: A User who Works in a Supermarket and has Down Syndrome

7. 2.3.7 Jonathan: A Therapist with Dyscalculia

8. 2.3.8 Maria: A User who has Memory Loss

9. 2.3.9 Sam: A Librarian who had a Stroke and Aphasia

10. 2.3.10 Tom: A Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor

4. 2.4 User Stories

1. 2.4.1 Objective 1: Help Users Understand What Things are and How to Use Them

2. 2.4.2 Objective 2: Help Users Find What They Need

3. 2.4.3 Objective 3: Use Clear and Understandable Content

4. 2.4.4 Objective 4: Help Users Avoid Mistakes or Correct Them

5. 2.4.5 Objective 5: Help Users to Maintain Focus

6. 2.4.6 Objective 6: Ensure Processes Do Not Rely on Memory

7. 2.4.7 Objective 7: Provide Help and Support

8. 2.4.8 Objective 8: Support Adaptation and Personalization

5. 3. Designing for Everyone

1. 3.1 Design Objectives

2. 3.2 Design Guide

1. 3.2.1 Introduction

2. 3.2.2 Objective: Help Users Understand What Things are and How to Use Them

3. 3.2.3 Objective: Help Users Find What They Need

1. 3.2.3.1 User Testing

2. 3.2.3.3 Pattern: Use a Clear and Understandable Page Structure

4. 3.2.4 Objective: Use Clear and Understandable Content
3.2.4.1 User Testing

5. 3.2.5 Objective: Help Users Avoid Mistakes or Correct Them
3.2.5.1 User Testing

6. 3.2.6 Objective: Help Users to Maintain Focus

7. 3.2.7 Objective: Ensure Processes Do Not Rely on Memory

8. 3.2.8 Objective: Provide Help and Support

9. 3.2.9 Objective: Support Adaptation and Personalization

6. A. Mapping User Needs, Persona and Patterns

1. A.1 Objective 1: Help users understand what things are and how to use them

2. A.2 Objective 2: Help the user find what they need

3. A.3 Objective 3: Use clear and understandable content and text

4. A.4 Objective 4: Prevent the user from making mistakes and make it easy to correct mistakes when they do occur

5. A.5 Objective 5: Help the user focus and restore context if attention is lost

6. A.6 Objective 6: Processes do not rely on memory

7. A.7 Objective 7: Provide help and support

8. A.8 Objective 8: Adapt and Personalize

7. B. Mapping Design Patterns to User Groups

8. C. Guidance for Policy Makers

9. D. Testable Statements for Each Pattern

10. E. Business Considerations

11. F. Change Log
F.1 Significant editorial changes since the First Public Working Draft

12. G. Acknowledgments

1. G.1 Participants active in the Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Task Force at the time of publication

2. G.2 Other Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Task Force contributors, commenters, and previously active participants

3. G.3 Enabling funders

1. Introduction

Making websites and applications that are friendly for people with cognitive impairments affects every part of design and development.

Traditionally accessibility has been most focused on the interface, and making that usable for people with sensory and physical impairments in vision, hearing and/or mobility. Some accessibility features will help people with cognitive impairments, but often the issues are about context, language, usability, and other more general factors that impact everyone to some degree.

This document aims to provide guidance on how to make websites and applications that are friendly for people with cognitive impairments by providing guidance for your designs, and design process.

1.1 Background about People with Learning and Cognitive Disabilities and the Web

People with cognitive and learning disabilities may not be able to effectively use web content because of the design and content choices of the author. Examples may include:

People with impaired short term memory may be unable to recall passwords or copy access codes. They may have trouble or be unable to remember new symbols and interface paradigms;

People with different processing speed capabilities may need additional time to understand the design relationships and volume of information on screen;

People with language related disabilities may need simple clear language and instructions. Some may rely on supporting graphics and familiar symbols to understand content;

People with social and/or communication disabilities may need clear literal language and may not understand metaphors or non-literal text and symbols;

People with dyscalculia may not understand or confuse numerical references such as percentages;

People who have issues with keeping or regaining focus, may be have difficulty completing a simple task if there are lots of distractions and interruptions. They may need headers and signposts to help them regain the context after their attention has been lost (including in multimedia);

Many groups will need support to minimize errors and complete their task. They will struggle with complex, multi-stage processes such as filling out forms or entering data correctly or finding the content or feature that they need.

These difficulties may sometimes also be experienced by users in the general population due to environmental or situational barriers, such as when they are trying to use a website when they are distracted. For example, working on a mobile device while in an unfamiliar or noisy situations can demand place addition cognitive load on all users by splitting their attention. However, for users with cognitive and learning disabilities, these difficulties are likely to be persistent and significant, so that they are unable to access content and abandon tasks.

Cognitive and learning disabilities include long-term and short-term and sometimes permanent difficulties relating to cognitive functions, such as:

perception, memory and attention;

learning and orientation;

visual, verbal and numerical thinking.

These are usually hidden difficulties and may be age related. The terminology and definitions used for cognitive disabilities varies between countries and users are less likely to have a formal diagnosis of a disability than individuals with physical and sensory difficulties. Cognitive disabilities may include intellectual impairments affecting comprehension alongside written and spoken expression. People may also experience a co-occurrence of difficulties such as dyspraxia / developmental coordination difficulties and ADHD should also be taken into account.

It should be noted that by addressing barriers to accessibility for users with cognitive and learning disabilities, improvements to digital technologies can be achieved and there is the potential to improve user experience for everyone.

2. Building in the User

2.1 Process

Some aspects of making web content and applications friendly for people with cognitive impairments are best dealt with as part of the overall design process. For most organizations there should be scope included for a user-centered design process.

Key parts of this process for people with cognitive impairments should be:

Including the needs of users with cognitive impairments in the context of use and requirements;

Including people with cognitive impairments in research methods such as usability testing.

If people with cognitive impairments are included in the usability testing and their feedback is accounted for, you can be sure that the website will be easier to use for everyone. (See Usability testing, below)

2.2 Usability Testing, Focus Groups and Feedback

Usability testing is the best way to know if your content and functionality works for real people with cognitive and learning disabilities.

Usability is important for everyone. However, if someone cannot use the content or design without help because of their disability, then the content is not accessible for them. It is important to change the design so that users with cognitive or learning disabilities can use the content independently.

Including digital accessibility throughout a project, right from the beginning, improves accessibility for all users. Including design patterns which focus on the needs of those with cognitive disabilities, and when possible, usability testing with individuals with cognitive disabilities, helps ensure accessibility for these individuals.

Automated testing for accessibility focuses on more technical areas of accessibility. While important, automated testing cannot assess if people with a cognitive impairment can successfully use the content. It is vital for people with cognitive disabilities that development teams do not rely solely on automated accessibility testing. Development teams should:

Use the design patterns as described in section 3 when designing interfaces and writing requirements.

If possible, perform usability tests with people who have cognitive disabilities. Usability testing of wireframes, conceptual drawings of the interface, or template pages can be helpful to identify challenges early in the project.

Sometimes designs and content are usable for some people but not if they have cognitive or learning impairments. Sometimes content is usable by people with one learning disability but not a different one. For example, content with fewer words and more numbers may be perfect for some users with dyslexia or autism spectrum disorder, but inaccessible for people with dyscalculia who struggle with numeric information. It is important that usability testing includes a diverse set of users with different cognitive or learning disabilities, such as people with a memory impairment, attention impairment, language and communication disability and intellectual disability.

Including People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities.

Persons with disabilities should participate in the design and development process. This also includes research that has something to do with them. They're the experts in what works for them.

This can involve including people with cognitive and learning disabilities in:

focus groups

usability tests

the design and research team.

Informed Consent

It is important to get a declaration of consent from all participants involved in testing and focus groups before they start. Before they sign up, participants must know and understand the details such as:

What the project is for.

What they will be doing and why it is helping you.

Any risks need to be explained and understood.

What personal details are collected and how any personal data may be used (note that their comments should be anonymized before being used in any report.)

They do not have to participate. Participation is always voluntary and they can always stop at any time.

If your tester has a guardian, you should get informed consent from both the tester and their guardian.

Using an understandable consent form is important. Our design patterns on clear content will help you use clear language and layout. Adding symbols can also help. You can also add comprehension questions to confirm that the terms are understood. You can also adapt the example consent forms from our developer resource page.

Finding People to Include

Finding people to include in usability testing who have different learning and cognitive disabilities can be relatively easy. People sometimes recruit users from an organization or self-help group for people with learning difficulties. Social media groups can be an easy and convenient resource. Alternatively, small developers can achieve a large improvement by asking people who they know, such as friends, colleagues, relatives or neighbors who:

Are older and struggle to use computers, or have age-related forgetfulness;

Are at an early stage of dementia

Have dyslexia and/or dyscalculia or ADHD

Have a learning or intellectual disability

People with acquired cognitive issues (for example, due to neurological trauma) who have the same challenges as people with other disabilities such as:

It is helpful to find people with learning and cognitive difficulties who are also in your target group as customers or users.

Our developer resource page references project and resources with information on finding and working with persons with learning and cognitive difficulties as co-researchers or peer researchers. Peer-researchers understand the perspective of people with their disabilities. The researchers and developers work together with peer researchers to find solutions. Peer researchers are also involved in testing the solution with other people with cognitive and learning disabilities.

If your organization has a more formal process, work with those that help employees or community members get assistive technology or other accommodations. They can put out a call for volunteers to their contacts. This helps individuals self-identify and opt-in to help.

Usability Testing

It is beyond the scope of this document to provide a guide to usability testing and user-research, however, there are useful resources available on our developer resource page. As a short overview, usability could be measured based on efficacy, efficiency and satisfaction. This can be done by measuring or tracking:

successes in completing tasks while noting any errors to measure efficacy,

time taken per task to measure efficiency, note that the relative time between tasks is often more useful than absolute numbers and

user's mood and comments to measure satisfaction.

At the end of the evaluation you should be able to answer:

What prevents the user from completing a task?

What creates confusion? When and why do they misinterpret the interface?

What produces an error and an incorrect action?

When does the user get frustrated or upset

When does the user misunderstand navigation, menus and controls?

How can these problems be avoided?

Differences from Usability Testing with the General Population

There are some differences when performing usability testing with people who have cognitive impairments:

Ask ahead of time if they need any support for their needs. This could include a quiet room or frequent breaks.

Ask what test methods work best for them, such as individual interviews or groups.

Ensure participation forms are easy to understand.

Inform the participant that they can request the information in a different format. If they make a request, ensure they receive it with enough time for them to review and ask questions.

Have a copy of the participation forms at the session, in case questions come up before the session begins.

Send participation forms to the participant in advance, and allow plenty of time for the participant to ask questions and fill in forms;

Allow the participant to bring a care giver, family member or friend to attend with them.

If your tester has a guardian, you should get an assent form from the tester and an informed consent form from their guardian;

If they bring a guardian or care giver, make sure they are not doing the tasks for them. If they give help, monitor closely what help they give as this may be due to a design fault.

Explain the testing method before the test.

The questions should not be too difficult.

It helps to provide easy methods of assessing mood, rather than asking for the participant to verbalize. Try asking them to select a smiley face, such as:Figure 1 A simple mood selector

Figure 1 A simple mood selector

Some individuals also have challenges identifying moods from faces. Other options to consider are simple mood selectors and text-based rating scales where an individual can point to their selection. For example, I really like this, it is fine, I really don't like this.

Check they understand the methods used to collect the data.

Ensure the person does not feel like they are at fault for making mistakes. While this is always important during usability testing, this scenario is even more likely for people with cognitive impairments.

Ask them for their ideas, such as, what features they would like to see, what design they prefer and what support they find most helpful.

Here are some suggestions of what to look for when conducting usability testing with people with learning and cognitive disabilities:

1. Before you start, make sure the research team understands that the testers cannot do anything wrong. Research should never harm the user or make them feel bad.

2. Make sure the participants and researchers know they can leave at any time. No one should feel bad if they leave!

3. Check that the testers understand the task or question. Encourage your testers to "think out loud"

4. Can your testers manage each task reasonably easily and fast? You can time the task taken to complete, and note any parts where the users slow down or seem to struggle. Also, note any errors that they make including clicking on the wrong item.

5. Is completing the task frustrating or upsetting?

1. You can ask the users how they are feeling before and after the tasks or rate their mood such as selecting the smiley face which represents how they feel.

2. Ask them if anything was annoying.

6. How can you make it better for your users (people with learning and cognitive disabilities)?

7. Ask your users if they have suggestions about what would make the interface easier for them to use. This is often best at the end of the usability test.

8. If the user is struggling, remind them that you are reviewing the system not them and that their insights are really helpful. Thank them for helping. Remind them that it is helpful when they find issues because it helps the team make the product better. Stop the process if users are getting distressed.

9. Analyze the data collected and review the findings with the team. Remember to keep the names of individuals confidential unless they have given permission to have their identity and disability shared.

(With thanks to Smart4MD and Easy Reading for this overview. These projects are co-financed by the European Union under an EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation - Horizon 2020, with grant agreement number 643399 and 780529 and the European commission for this contribution.)

2.3 Use Cases / Persona

Any time there is a 'target audience', there will be people with learning and cognitive disabilities in that audience. Cognitive impairments are often invisible in day-to-day life until people encounter particular challenges. To provide some context and understanding, eight personas have been created which outline fictional people with various cognitive impairments and the challenges they face.

For additional examples from other organizations, see Persona Links on the Developer resources page.

2.3.1 Alison: An Aging User with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Alison has a medical background, working in rehabilitation of physical injuries, but has recently decided to work part-time to take up more hobbies and be with her grandchildren. She wants to try an online course to learn Chinese, in preparation for a special holiday. Alison considers 63 to be the new 36. However, she has difficulty concentrating and finding the word she wants to say. She often makes typos and has to correct sentences when she re-reads them. She becomes easily frustrated as she finds new technical things, like updated design patterns and applications, to be hard to learn and less intuitive than they used to be. Plus, navigation takes longer than in the past. Unfortunately, this includes learning how to use a new interface and this affects the way she works when swapping between her tablet, phone and computer.

Scenario 1: Learning How to Use New Technologies and Interfaces

Alison recently took an evening course to learn how to use Windows and MS Word ten years ago and used to feel very comfortable with the interface. After she had to renew her computer she finds all the updates mean that most applications now appear very different. She realizes that links and buttons have changed appearance and often finds she does not know what to press. Sometimes she will press a picture or stylized heading that is not a control and so is not sure if the internet was down, the site is broken or she has made a mistake. Sometimes she touches something accidentally and the focus moves to a different page or application. For example, she recently tried to enlarge some small text and activated a link instead of enlarging it! She misses the days when all links were in blue and underlined.

Alison loses self-confidence when things go wrong. For example, selecting an incorrect button or getting an error that she does not understand. She knows to try and press the back button to go back a step, but it does not always work as she thinks it will. She tends to think she cannot cope, so gives up, but with support to adapt the interface to suit her needs she could learn to use the new style.

Her children worked with her to reduce the number of menu items on the application toolbar so she can concentrate on the ones she regularly uses. They helped her change her settings so when searching for items on the web, only a limited number now appear at one time. They also found her a de-cluttering browser extension that takes away many of the advertisements and other items that clutter her social media pages when communicating with her grandchildren.

Scenario 2: Correcting Typos and Writing Fluently

When writing letters and messages on her computer, phone and tablet Alison pauses every so often and checks that what she is writing makes sense. She finds it very annoying having to work so slowly, but by using text-to-speech to read out content she has found she can hear her mistakes more easily than she notices them on the screen. She has also discovered that this process can make reading web pages easier and less tiring. However, she often has to go over instructions several times before completing tasks online. She depends on the fact that forms do not time out or have an option to allow her to extend the time to fill in the edit boxes.

Scenario 3: Coping with Online Banking and Shopping

Alison knows her math skills are not as sharp as they used to be. She is worried about making mistakes that will put her financially at risk and she is not sure she should be using her credit card online. Alison wants to feel safe and supported.

She has found that autocomplete helps filling out forms, but she tends to worry that what has been entered may not be accurate. She has a paper card listing some commonly needed information such as her phone number, address and postcode. She stores secure information in a special folder and she has set up an agreement with the bank to limit spending on her credit card and mobile banking.

Scenario 4: Giving Feedback

Alison would like to give feedback and tell her bank what changes they could make to their website to make it more usable for her and other mature customers. She struggles to find the feedback form and she has to type in a lot of information to send her suggestions. When she types in her phone number without the area code she receives an error. She tries to fix the error and send the suggestion but the send button becomes disabled so she probably needs to correct something else as well. At this point Alison feels they do not want her feedback and gives up. She now uses the site much less often. She also finds it hard to reach a support person on the phone because of the confusing phone menu system, so drives into the bank instead. She is thinking of changing to her daughters bank, so her daughter can help her.

2.3.2 Amy: A Computer Scientist who has Autism

Amy loves her computer science course and now programs in several languages. She has discovered she can visualize the outcome of her coding and is quick to find any errors even if they have not been highlighted. Documentation writing is less fun and she tends to be rather too concise which means some users do not receive enough help using her applications.

Being able to code your own websites can make you very critical of others! Amy finds that she often feels quite confused by some social media sites that have dynamically changing content with random messages and advertisements. She either avoids these sites or tends to try to personalize them by clearing away the clutter and choosing to hide sections. Navigation that does not follow a simple route across an entire site really annoys her, as she feels this does not help anyone. She also finds that she is missing important information on sites that have too much information on pages or have no clear and logical structure.

When a page loads automatically or animations and videos play automatically cause problems for Amy. Sometimes, the movement can be very distracting and the sounds alarming. She has always found that sudden noises or something happening unintentionally has been a problem. When designing her own applications and websites she makes sure all the controls for animated objects or videos are very visible and do not start until the user has decided they wish to interact or view the object.

Amy is always concerned about communicating clearly and finds it hard when people ask her to create a design that includes abstract imagery. Images that do not directly represent something make Amy feel uneasy and she tends to ask if there can be some explanatory text in case other users are confused. On the other hand, a figure of speech where someone has written something that is not literal makes her wish that the writer would use easy to read content as it is hard to understand concepts such as, "the wheels of justice turning slowly."

2.3.3 Anna: A Student who has Dyslexia and Poor Eye Hand Coordination

Anna has been a student for the past year. Her Fashion Design course has been challenging but fun. She loves the creative aspect of the diploma and would rather be drawing than writing. She has moderate dyslexia, which affects her ability to read, spell and use numbers. Anna has a poor working memory, especially for numbers and digits. She also has poor auditory discrimination which affects her ability to read quickly.

Anna had several projects to complete as part of her portfolio, but the one that worried her most involved a written assignment where she has to research the topic of Post-war fashions and their impact on today's designs.

Scenario 1: Logging In

Anna's use of the library catalogue from home failed at the first attempt when she could not remember her password. She kept putting in 'afib61' rather than 'afid16' and could not see the mistake. The error message on the web page had not helped because it announced that her user name or password were incorrect and she was not sure which one was wrong. Luckily, as she was on her own laptop the browser settings allowed her to save her password and she was able to automatically log in.

Scenario 2: Finding Accessible Content

Having navigated the online library system, Anna eventually found a paper on the subject she wanted, which she could download in pdf format. She was hoping to use her text-to-speech app to read the content aloud but when she tried to highlight the text nothing happened. She discovered the document was actually an image and yet there was no warning this was the case. She could not find an alternative accessible version of the paper. This meant she had to use optical character recognition to virtually scan the paper. It was not totally successful leaving gaps in the information she found and the process took away valuable time from her writing.

Scenario 3: Filling in a Form to Ask for an eJournal Article

Finally, Anna found an ejournal that had another article, but there was a form that had to be completed. Anna duly started the process but realized she did not know the author's name. She returned to the page where she had found the article to copy and paste the name. Sadly when she returned to the form all that she had filled in was lost. She had hoped to just be able to add the final bit, not have to retype the whole thing again.

(Adapted from MOOCAP Erasmus + Persona CC-BY-4.0 http://gpii.eu/moocap/?page_id=33)

Scenario 4: Overlooking Important Information

Anna is a very slow reader and often sounds out words. She has low auditory processing skills so she cannot speed up her screen reader. Therefore, to manage her busy life she has to try and scan read and skip through the massive amounts of content, emails and newsletter she sees so she can read only the most important parts. Sometimes however, she cannot find important content because it is buried inside lots of other content, or the headers and visual layout of the content does not guide her to where she needs to be.

Anna is always worried that she is missing something important and sometimes she is. For example, her daughters elementary school published a weekly newsletter with interesting stories about activities and important announcements. It contained information that her daughters school was ending early one day, but it was buried under less important information about the school activities. Because it takes her so long to read each word she did not manage to read the whole newsletter and did not know that her daughter was coming home earlier than usual. As a result she was not home in time and her daughter was left waiting outside for over an hour.

Scenario 5: Pressing the Correct Button

Anna has bad eye hand coordination, so precise movements are hard and she often touches the wrong button or digit when typing on her small phone screen. With her low letter recognition this makes typing in codes or text very unreliable. She also confuses left and right so she is often pressing the off button in place of the volume. In most interactions on her phone she makes some form of mistake, such as loading a new video when she intended to expand the screen of the window she was watching. To use an application successfully it needs to have a consistent back or undo function.

2.3.4 Carolyn: A Yoga Teacher who has ADHD

Carolyn found concentrating at school difficult and when she got into college to take a course in business studies life became even more stressful. She knew she could cope with the studies but never seemed to get her work completed on time, found it hard to start a report and even to create a plan for a project. When working with others she always had good ideas but somehow they were never taken up and she became frustrated often failing to keep her feelings in check. Luckily, a tutor suggested she sought help and when a psychologist, mentioned Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) Carolyn was relieved to have a reason for some of the planning and organizational difficulties she was having. She learnt that if she could make use of her constantly active brain and body as well as manage her time better, she could turn her hobby into a very successful Yoga business.

Scenario 1: Gathering Key Points from a Heavy Text Based Document or Web Page

Carolyn could not really explain her apparent forgetfulness and not being able to focus or complete tasks, but she knew that if she came across a long document or web page with dense text she had to find the key points. If the web page failed to have a clear structure with a content list, well-spaced and highlighted headings she would be lost and lose concentration. Carolyn also said that if she was using her mobile she found advertisements appearing between chunks of text completely upset her focus and she had to stop reading. However, when there was good use of white space, recognizable icons linking to simple bold text clarifying the important points, Carolyn could target these areas and find out what she needed. A clear summary also provided clarity of understanding and Carolyn could remember much of what she had read.

When setting up a new website for her business, Carolyn found an attractive template with several different ways of being able to show images of her exercises. However, she could not make the carousel of photographs pause, or a banner with her latest news stop scrolling. This really annoyed her as she found both items stopped her concentrating on the real content on the rest of the site. She thought that if it was upsetting her, what about her intended audience! She had to find a friend to add some code that not only added controls, but also stopped the automatic movement giving her website a calmness that she hoped her yoga teaching achieved.

Scenario 3: Losing Focus when Completing Tasks

Carolyn enjoyed her Yoga teaching, but found that if she was developing some instructional materials for her website, online tools often failed to provide sufficient guidance. Unless there was a clear pathway and a way to return to the place where she was working, she often deleted items by accident or could not make corrections. Saving endless previews with yet more tabs being open in her browser caused anxiety levels to rise. It was not until she found a web app that made each task clear with a submit button, that saved her work in stages, that she was able to cope. Carolyn was able to see sections of her work in the correct order and could then manage the bite size chunks of instruction, rather than have to deal with it all at once. This made it so much easier for her to complete the exercise sheets and she became confident in her use of the application to the extent she was willing to purchase the pro version.

Scenario 4: Learning Information from a Video

Theoretically, Carolyn likes instructional videos, but in practice she can only concentrate well enough to learn for a few minutes at a time. Then she loses her concentration. She will usually lose focus earlier if there is more than a minute of content that she already knows. When this happens, she misses the information that she needs! Carolyn tries hard but she still cannot focus for more than a few minutes on content that she already knows. Sometimes she watches videos at high speed so that they are less boring for her, but she still loses focus within a few minutes. When a video is broken down into segments with clear headings, she can jump to the information she needs to learn, and jump forward over segments that she already knows. When she misses information that she needs she can easily jump to the correct location and focus.

2.3.5 Frank: A Retired Lawyer with Dementia

Frank retired from his law firm in his early 60s when he found he was forgetting important items that needed to be discussed in his complex caseload. He found that he was forgetting material that he had just read, losing and misplacing objects and having trouble planning or organizing events. Frank is a very intelligent man and that has not changed. You will often find him reading an article about the law. However, he finds he cannot learn new things that rely on remembering new information. This can include new words or symbols.

Frank noticed that he had trouble with online calendars and booking flights and hotels when he was planning his summer holiday. He could not work out the way the dates had to be entered into the form and made mistakes with the month and day. If only there had been a good example or tooltip. He also found that when he was booking a flight, the table that had the various lists of airports automatically entered the initials, which was very confusing when he was checking that everything was correct. Finally, there was the issue of making sure he booked the right number of nights for his hotel stay. He knew his arrival time at the airport was a day later than when he left, but it would have helped to have had a calendar with colour and clear markings for the days in the week not just numbers.

Scenario 2: Coping with Icons that are not Recognizable

Many web pages now have their own graphic icons and ways of indicating actions that need to be completed. Frank was having problems searching for information about a care home that he thought might help him in the future. He could not work out what the various options were when he came to fill out a form for his requirements. There appeared to be a series of small images beside the edit boxes, but the minute he began to write in the form the text explanation disappeared. He wanted the instructions to remain in place above the area where he was writing and for the box to be highlighted when he found he had missed some important sections.

Scenario 3: Support when Using Search Engines

Frank likes to surf the web for anything to do with fishing, his favorite hobby. However, he has found that the sheer number of items that appear when he types in a few words very confusing. Ideally he would like the number of search results to be reduced and perhaps have some way of seeing the items categorized in groups so that he can work out which services he needs. In this case it might also be helpful to have icons appearing when the groups are listed, so that he can see articles about fly fishing in one section and sea fishing in another. Blocks of text with more white space around them would also be helpful so that he is not having to cope with such a mass of text.

Scenario 4: Making a Doctors Appointment

Frank can be independent, but often finds unsuitable designs make him require help. For example, he was trying to make a doctor's appointment. He went to the doctor's website and clicked on "make an appointment". Then a popup opened asking him for the date. He became distracted by the phone, and when he returned to the screen he was not sure what it was for. So he did not make the appointment. If the popup had had a clear heading he would have been reminded of what he was doing, but without this landmark he was just confused.

Later Frank tried calling to make an appointment. Unfortunately, the voice system was automated and asked him questions like "press 2 to make an appointment" Frank typically cannot remember the digit - especially while he is processing the options. He usually gets lost in these systems or types the wrong digit. Frank is reluctant to ask for help and as a result he is not getting the health care he needs.

Scenario 5: Using the Heating

Frank recently moved to a smaller apartment that is easier to take care of. However, this means he is not used to the ICT interfaces for the heating and television system. He has tried to turn on the heat, but the menu item for selecting heat or air conditioning is labeled "mode" and he cannot remember or learn new terms. Frank cannot use the whole unit because of this one term. This has caused emergencies such as hypothermia. Frank keeps the heating on at the same temperature and will only change it when his helper comes.

The TV also has an ICT interface with a lot of symbols that Frank does not know. His helper put an "on/off" sticker next to the button that he can use, but he cannot change the channel or change the volume.

When his microwave broke he bought a new one with controls that were similar to his old one. Because the controls were familiar, Frank can use the microwave unaided, although he needs help with the TV and heating.

2.3.6 George: A User who Works in a Supermarket and has Down Syndrome

George enjoys his job and lives semi-independently in a small town, where he can easily find his way around. However, George finds it hard to use search engines and navigate around websites because of the need to work with large blocks of text. He has problems using the online systems at work, and needs help to search for suitable videos or music.

Scenario 1: Using Symbols for Communication

George used to use Makaton symbols and gestures when at school, but is able to communicate relatively easily now, although reading and writing remains a challenge. Surfing the web is hard when most interactions require text input, but George likes to watch videos, find images and listen to music as well as playing games online. Friends have set up links with recognizable icons on his tablet and this has made it easy to visit his favorite sites. If recognizable symbols or icons could be used in more situations, George feels he would be able to reach more sites independently. There are search engines designed for children and these often use more images, but tend to be too childish for George's taste.

George has been told about surfing safely and not giving out personal information. He is very lucky that his family has set up his Facebook and Skype account with various privacy settings. However, George finds the way emojis change or new icons keep appearing on his message systems rather confusing and does not always realize what some of them mean. He has sometimes selected an inappropriate symbol and then receives a rather short message from a friend in return that is upsetting. He finds it hard to explain what might have happened. He knows there have been times when he really can't choose the right symbol because it is too small and he finds it hard to accurately hit the spot. George is then very worried as he does not know how to unlike or change his symbol choice. Interacting with emojis and other symbols is much easier for him with easy ways to enlarge these features on touch interfaces and to undo errors.

Scenario 3: Controls on Videos and Popup Windows

Using a mouse is not easy for everyone and double clicking can take time to learn. George has worked hard to improve his mouse skills by playing many onscreen games, but he still finds it hard to move accurately enough to skip ads on videos or to track down the close/exit method offered by some popup windows. Once again friends have come to the rescue and enabled an ad blocker extension for his browser, but this does not always capture all the ads or prevent George selecting the submit rather than a cross or exit button on a pop-up. There have been times when George has downloaded malware without any second warning appearing or been unable to reach a site because he cannot find the small cross on a transparent popup window that overlays the main page.

Scenario 4: Finding ways to Read Instructions

George finds it very hard to read instructions unless they use very short and easy to read words. He needs text that has been simplified. The best option for George is when someone has taken the trouble to provide a summary of a paragraph with a well-known symbol,short bullet points and a clear diagram or image of what is required. He finds videos with instructions usually go too quickly and he has to stop them, going back time and time again. Helpful instructions with well broken up sets of phrases using easy to read words can work well and he can go back to them when he has to remember how to do a particular task.

2.3.7 Jonathan: A Therapist with Dyscalculia

Jonathan is a massage therapist with dyscalculia. For Jonathan numbers are a foreign language. He can add simple numbers with his fingers and cope with very basic sums. However, he has particular difficulty with numbers that have a series of zeros and their relationship to each other such as 10, 100, 1000 etc. He finds complex calculations, symbols and mathematical concepts are very problematic.

Scenario 1: Coping with Quantities when Shopping Online

Jonathan struggles with the actual value of products, purchasing the correct quantities, for example when buying food at the supermarket and often orders far too much or too little when using online shopping carts. He has found it is much more helpful to have symbols representing the proportional size of items per price or to have a warning when he has ordered an item that might be very large and therefore costly. He saves shopping lists that have been successful and where the amounts have been correct so that he can re-use the lists on other occasions. His bank has helped by adding restrictions on the amount he can spend whether online or using his mobile phone. This can be annoying, but has stopped him from overdrawing his account.

Scenario 2: Remembering Pin Numbers and Passwords

The use of pin numbers and passwords that insist on including a number has always been an issue and most of the time Jonathan uses a secure password application when online. When it comes to the number on the back of his credit card (Card Verification Code) that is always required at the end of a payment exercise, he has to look it up each time, though autofill has helped with completing the rest of the form. Jonathan made sure that what he originally entered and saved in his browser was correct. Too many times he has had to retrace his steps due to typos and not seeing that the entry was incorrect. When he has to return to the form to make corrections, he finds it essential that the corrections needed are clearly highlighted and the instructions provided are helpful. He also feels that it is important that the data he entered previously has not been lost, as the more often he types in numbers etc. the more likely he is to make mistakes.

At work, there are times when Jonathan has to share a spreadsheet with a colleague to ensure that the group's accounts are in order, suppliers have been correctly invoiced and fees collected. The mass of numbers affects Jonathan's ability to concentrate on the various areas on the spreadsheet. He has found that it helps to use color coding, increased spacing and larger font sizes in order to pick out the various elements. He uses a tool for recording his hours where he can press start and stop to see how long he has worked without using maths but he is not confident to add hours worked to the spreadsheet himself. He wishes it was integrated into the work spreadsheet. Jonathan will often use the comment feature to add something that he feels his colleague need to check, rather than making the correction to the spreadsheet himself. If the document is saved as a PDF or presented in another format, Jonathan insists that it is easy to use with his text-to-speech program which helps him to check how the numbers need to be said and that he can annotate the contents when using his tablet. This is especially important if he is presenting numbers at a meeting.

2.3.8 Maria: A User who has Memory Loss

Maria is 50 years old, married, and lives with her family in Madrid, Spain. Maria is beginning to lose her memory but still works part-time for a local company.

Scenario 1: Finding Key Information on Dynamic Websites

Maria needs to gather specific types of online information for her job. She often has to run through reports about the company on the company's website. She is only able to easily read the headlines of web pages. The company's website looks fancy, has a modern user interface and a lot of dynamic elements that change when you hover the mouse over them. For Maria this site is a total nightmare! She finally finds the link to the data she needs as it appears when she happens to hover over a certain menu item with her mouse. The link is positioned in such a bad place that she did not notice it at first. She has found that it really helps if important interactive items are placed in the usual menu areas on a screen and the icons are clearly defined and easily recognizable.

Scenario 2: Remembering Information Entered During a Previous Step

While ordering business cards (a multi-step process), Maria has difficulty remembering information that she enters into previous screens. On the first step she sees content choices that the process expects her to remember in subsequent screens. Additionally, the prolonged mental stress that she experiences while navigating processes inhibits her brain from producing the cells necessary to form new memories. Processes that require her to remember information from one step to another need to provide her access to any previously provided information that is required to proceed, at the exact point of use that is required, otherwise she will not be able to complete the process.

Scenario 3: Pressing the Correct Button

Maria has bad eye hand coordination, so precise movements are hard and she often touches the wrong button on her small phone screen. This means she often presses the wrong button or digit when typing on her small phone screen. With her low letter recognition this makes typing in codes or text very unreliable. She confuses left and right so she is often pressing the off button in place of the volume. In most interactions on her phone she makes some form of mistake, such as loading a new video when she intended to expand the screen of the window she was watching. To use an application successfully it needs to have a consistent back function.

2.3.9 Sam: A Librarian who had a Stroke and Aphasia

Sam loved his work as a librarian. He had spent his entire life surrounded by books in peaceful places where he could research his love for history. In recent years, he enjoyed using the web to explore how other people around the world saw the history of his own country and the changing views on famous people from the past. Now he was becoming depressed and very frustrated due to a recent stroke. The right side of his body was paralyzed and he had difficulty having conversations with friends and family due to aphasia. To him this meant that some of his words were muddled, his understanding was not always as clear as it had been and worst of all; he could not read as fluently as he had in the past. One handed typing was slow and he found his word finding abilities often failed him.

Scenario 1: Having Well-spaced Text with Words that are Easy to Pick Out

Despite all the difficulties that Sam had with his beloved reading, he was determined to improve and found that if a website had no clutter or background imagery he could read the headings. He also found that if there was adequate spacing and the text was not too complex, he could pick words out and with the help of text-to-speech understand the meaning. He did not like the sound of the synthesized speech, because he found it distracting having always read silently. However, over time, he learnt to enlarge the fonts and if the page had left justified text with uneven right edges, he could find his way about by the different shapes of each paragraph. As he became more confident, he began to use some browser tools and was able to increase the line spacing and change the font style on some of his old favorite online historical documents.

Scenario 2: Using Edit Boxes where the Instructions Disappear

Sam had not expected to have to fill in so many online forms in order to receive benefits due to his disability. They caused immense frustration and feelings of self-doubt due to their lack of clarity. Every time he had to fill in an edit box, the instructions disappeared the minute he began to type and he could not remember what was required. He often had to refresh the page and start again to see the label in the box. Sam spent so long on the task that the page would time out. He had to print it out and get help. This was really upsetting as he wanted to be independent and it often reduced him to tears. This was very unlike him, but as the doctor explained, this was linked to his stroke. He also found it very frustrating when a form required a particular way of formatting information with no example as to how to complete the action. Worse still was when the error was not clearly explained, making correction even harder. Dates, postal codes and phone numbers are a particular nightmare.

Scenario 3: Trying to Activate Elements that have been Mis-recognized

The effects of aphasia with acquired dyslexia can be exhausting and confusing but most worrying for Sam was the sense of getting lost on a web page that he thought he knew. He admitted to being nervous when he could not pick out elements in a page that required an interaction. Sometimes he said he did not dare click on a button in case he did something wrong or was sent to somewhere without warning. Sam found this aspect of his web surfing very alarming, as in the past he had been able to navigate with ease. He discovered that the edges of shapes did not appear as clear as they should have been when people use pale greys and he missed links unless expressly highlighted. If a pop-up window suddenly appeared, there were times when he could not close it to return to the page. Small crosses became a nightmare and Sam stressed that the more things happened on a page, the more confused he became. He mentioned the fact that some sites were easier on his tablet as then it all seemed to flow one way and he could just scroll up and down until he felt happy with a decision.

Scenario 4: Coping with Complex Language

When text was written in the passive voice or in an academic manner with long complex words Sam struggled to sometimes understand their meaning even if they were in context. He also found, if he was required to use the same type of language in a form, that he had to copy the words as he could not always spell them and at times he used the wrong word. When he was able to use an app that enabled the text to be read aloud, he could cope if the language was clear and the sentences were kept short. He liked articles that were written in the active tense so he could understand the main ideas straight away.

2.3.10 Tom: A Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor

Tom was involved in a very serious car crash that left him with some physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities having sustained a brain injury. He has returned to work, but often finds communications strained due to difficulties with memory recollection and visual understanding.

Tom had to learn how to walk, talk, and basically live life all over again. Medical experts informed him that his greatest chances for recovery would take place within the first 2 years after his injury. After that he may continue to recover, but at a much slower, and incremental rate. His friends and family were amazed by how quickly he regained his ability to speak, and perform his daily life functions. They were perplexed, however, by all of the cognitive difficulties he expressed having, despite his clear ability to articulate and communicate. For example, he often cannot recognize images and faces. He gets disorientated in physical spaces and often gets lost in rooms, as well as buildings, larger places, documents and websites.

He has now returned to his old company as a researcher and is back using applications and the Internet throughout his working day.

Tom has dexterity difficulties so he sometimes uses speech recognition to work through web pages and enter text. He finds this method the least tiring of all the possible input options. Although his speech is slow, he is able to control his computer using speech commands and dictation. It is quite easy to use simple commands to control websites, although there are times when he forgets some of the commands and has to use his cheat sheet. Tom likes the scroll commands that allow him to read slowly down a page without using any other input device and he can often retrace his steps as he has to reread items. However, there can be problems if the forms on the website are not labeled correctly or if buttons do not have clear names. Tom had help personalizing some aspects of form completion, but if an element is inaccessible via the keyboard, he has to use the mouse grid to interact with that part of the site. This is a slow process and can be frustrating as Tom finds he loses concentration.

Scenario 2: Finding the Right Words to Use for Searching

Tom finds there are times when he spells words incorrectly and he appreciates error corrections or a system that accepts mistakes. He also has word finding problems when he is tired and he welcomes search suggestions,as these are ideas that might be related to his search. However, too many results can cause concern and Tom admits he really cannot work his way through very long lists that have not been broken up with headings and categories.

Scenario 3: Being Confident that he Understands the Content

Tom has difficulty understanding content when it is not explicitly clear, and without any ambiguity whatsoever. He takes a notably longer amount of time to read and process information in order to be certain that he is interpreting it correctly. His interpretation of information is almost always correct, but even the slightest bit of ambiguity, or open interpretation creates sticking points that he must read over and over again, and question every which way until he can assure himself with the confidence that he understands it correctly. Examples and clear step-by-step instructions can help him have the confidence to complete his task. Simple, clear memorable graphics or large indicators of steps in a process can increase Tom's understanding,confidence and orientation in a process.

Scenario 4: Understanding where Information is in a Hierarchical Structure

Tom tries to understand the outline of the page and site, so that he does not get lost in the content. Sometimes he dives into the website but then he does not know where he is in the content or task. Clear and consistent headings in a hierarchical structure are needed for Tom to understand the level of importance of content and a clear site structure lets him orientate himself in the site.

He values simple, clear graphics that relate to the content and break it up. These help him orient as well as understand and remember the content. This also includes the following user needs.: Symbols that emphasize the structure and role of the content or an image that accompanies the main text and makes it memorable.

Scenario 5: Cognitive Overload

Complex presentations of information (images, diagrams, content heavy web pages, etc) overload Tom's cognitive functioning. This shuts his brain down and prevents him from progressing through processes, navigating, systems, and environments, and understanding the information presented, at both the micro and macro level.

Liberal use of white space can decrease the cognitive load where there is a considerable amount of content on one page.

2.4 User Stories

User needs for people with learning and cognitive disabilities (COGA) are often important for other users. However, for COGA groups they often make the difference between being able to use the site or not be able to use it at all.

2.4.2 Objective 2: Help Users Find What They Need

User Story: Findable

As a user with a memory impairment, weak executive function and/or weak language processing skills, I need to be able to find features and content easily, so that I can find things in a reasonable amount of time.

I can identify important information and critical functions on a page, quickly and easily.

This also includes the following user needs.:

Related Personas: Alison, Amy, Anna, Carolyn, Maria, Tom

User Story: Searchable

As a user with a memory impairment, weak executive function and/or weak language processing skills, I need to be able to find features and content easily, so that I can find things in a reasonable amount of time. I can easily search for what I want.

This also includes the following user needs:

I can find what I have searched for before

I can easily navigate through the menu structure and organization of the site and page

Related Persona: Tom

As a user with a memory impairment, weak executive function and/or weak language processing skills, I need to be able to find features and content easily, so that I can find things in a reasonable amount of time.

The structure and menu categories make sense to me, so that I find what I am looking for, without looking in the wrong place.

This also includes the following user needs:

I can easily understand, navigate and browse both the site and page structure

I can scan the page and understand the priority and structure of the content

Related Personas: Alison, Amy, Frank, Maria, Sam, Tom

2.4.5 Objective 5: Help Users to Maintain Focus

User Story: Distractions

As a user with an attention impairment and weak memory, I need to be able to avoid distraction and restore the context after I lose focus and come back to the task, so that I can complete the task I am trying to do.

This also includes the following user needs:

I do not want distractions from my task.

If there are distractions, I must be able to easily turn them off

As a user that needs help to stay focused, I need help with knowing where a task starts and finishes to help with switching attention so that I can focus on the task.

This also includes the following user needs:

I need to know the context, where I am, what I just did, or what just happened to me after I lost focus and then needed to come back to the task.

As a user with poor short-term memory, I need to be able to go back or see information about where I am in a site so I can re-orientate myself.

As a user who gets disoriented, I want to know where I am in a process, including what I have done and what my next step will be.

Related Personas: Amy, Carolyn, Frank, Sam, Tom

2.4.6 Objective 6: Ensure Processes Do Not Rely on Memory

User Story: Previous Steps

As a user with short-term and working memory difficulties, I need access to information I entered during previous steps in a process.

User Story: Accessible Authentication

As a user who has memory impairments and often forgets passwords, and has weak executive function, I need a method of secure website authentication that I can use.

This also includes the following user needs:

Related Personas: Anna, Jonathan

User Story: Voice Menus

As a user who has memory impairments and weak language processing skills, I want to get human help, without going through a complex VoiceXML menu system and complex voice recognition menu system that relies on memory and executive function, so I can set an appointment or find out some information.

This also includes the following user needs:

If I get stuck I want to be able to find a human by pressing a reserved digit (typically the number 0)

I need simple-to-navigate voice-menu systems with limited options that make sense to me, so I don't have to struggle with multiple steps

I need the option to be said before the number to select, so I do not have to remember the number while processing the words

As a user with low cognitive processing speed, I want pauses between each option so I can process what was said

As a slow speaker I want the system to wait for my response

I want it to be simple, to go back every time I make a mistake, without having to start at the beginning

I want the best practice for usability to be followed

As a user who has weak executive function, I need a process to get help to be simple, and not multi-step

I do not want to waste my energy while I struggle to understand other material, such as special offers or promotions

As a user with weak language skills I need help identifying the right words to say in a voice menu and the words should be the ones I would use

As a user who struggles with multiple steps, I need to identify relevant options quickly.

Related Personas: Frank, Maria

2.4.7 Objective 7: Provide Help and Support

User Story: Feedback

As a user who often cannot use a website I want to be able to give feedback easily from every place where I get stuck. This ensures I am not excluded and the site is aware of my needs.

This also includes the following user needs:

I can give feedback from any point in the process.

I can give feedback, ask questions and get feedback:

I know how to get human help and can manage the process easily.

Related Persona: Alison

User Story: Support

As a user who often cannot use a website I sometimes need in-page and inline support so that I am able to use the content.

This also includes the following user needs:

As a user who struggles with text and words, help and support should include symbols or enable me to personalize using my own

As a user who struggles with text and words, help and main content should be clearly differentiated so I do not confuse them

As a user who struggles with text and words, I need contextually-relevant graphs and pictures to supplement text so I can understand a point without a lot of reading. For example, I find graphs much easier to understand than the same information in an article or academic paper

As a user who struggles with text and words, I need speech support, with synchronized highlighting, so I can follow as I go

As a user who struggles with web content, I need rapid feedback or visual cues to indicate an event was successfully triggered. For example, I need to know when an email has been sent, otherwise it looks as if it has just disappeared

I need reminders integrated into my calendar, otherwise I will forget appointments and when I am meant to do things. Sometimes I need reminders to revisit a web site to complete the next task

As a user with an attention disorder, too many reminders distract me. I need to be able to control when reminders are sent, the frequency and type of reminders.

Related Personas: George, Sam,

User Story: Safety

As a user with sensitivities that can be triggered by content (eg content that is busy, confusing, depressing, loud noise), I need content that I can cope with so that I can be successful.

This also includes the following user needs:

I need to avoid triggers

I need to feel safe. I need to feel safe and secure when using a website, especially if providing information or communicating with others.

I need to avoid and recover from mental fatigue

Related Persona: Tom

User Story: Task Management
As a user who struggles using web content due to executive function impairment and/or struggle with numerical concepts, I want to be confident that I can manage my tasks.
This also includes the following user needs:

Explanations for unusual controls in a form I find easy to use (such as a video or text)

Support and explanations for any choices. The advantages or disadvantages are clear to me and I understand the effects of the choice I might make. For example, when choosing a cheaper airline ticket you often have to pay for a meal.

I know how to start a task, and what is involved such as:

I can turn off any distractions during a task, and help is available at any point

3. Designing for Everyone

3.1 Design Objectives

To help web content providers meet the needs of people with cognitive and learning disabilities we have identified the following objectives:

1. Help users understand what things are and how to use them. This often involves using things that are familiar to the user so that they do not have to learn new symbols, terms or design patterns. People with cognitive disabilities often need predictable behaviour and design patterns. For example, they may know the standard convention for hyperlinks (underlined and blue for unvisited; purple for visited). Using clear headings, boundaries and regions also help let people understand the page design. See the design guide for an understandable interface.

2. Help users find what they need. Navigating the system should be easy. See the design guide for navigation.

3. Use clear and understandable content. This includes clear text, clear images, speech, and easy to understand video. See the design guide for understandable content.

4. Help users avoid mistakes or correct them. A good design and use of scripts will make errors less likely, but when they do occur the user should know how to correct them, without having start from the beginning. See the design guide for errors.

5. Help users to maintain focus. Avoid distracting the user from their task. If they do get distracted, headings and breadcrumbs can help orientate the user and help the user restore the context when it is lost. (Making breadcrumbs clickable can also help the user undo mistakes.) See the design guide for focus.

6. Ensure processes do not rely on memory. Avoid barriers that stop people with cognitive disabilities from using content. This includes long passwords to log in and voice menus that involve remembering a specific number or term. Make sure there is an easier way option for people who need it. See the design guide for barriers.

7. Provide help and support. Graphics, summaries of long documents, adding icons to headings and links are all examples of extra help and support. Feedback must be usable by everyone. If users have difficulty sending feedback then you will not know if they are able to use the content or when they are experiencing problems. See the design guide for support.

8. Support adaptation and personalization. People with cognitive disabilities are often using add-ons or extensions as assistive technology. Sometimes, extra support which we can provide with minimal effort from the user via personalization that allows the user to select preferred options from a set of alternatives. Support personalization when you can. Do not disable add-ons and extensions!
See the design guide for personalization.

Note that most of the design patterns in the guide were originally created as recommendations for WCAG, the full list of potential requirements and the requirements for the design guide are available.

3.2 Design Guide

3.2.1 Introduction

Making websites and applications friendly for people with cognitive and learning disabilities affects every part of design and development.

Accessibility has traditionally focused on the making the user interface usable for people with sensory and physical impairments in vision, hearing and/or mobility. Some accessibility features that help these user groups also help people with cognitive impairments. People with cognitive and learning disabilities also need improvements to context, language, usability, and other more general factors that impact everyone to some degree. As a result, they do not fit well into traditional accessibility standards.

This document provides assistance making websites and applications friendly for people with cognitive and learning disabilities by providing you with guidance for your designs and design process.

This guide is divided into design themes. Each theme includes user stories, testing methodologies, and design checkpoints. Just understanding the themes and user stories may help you make your content more accessible to some users with cognitive and learning disabilities. Please see the section on user testing for guidance on how to perform COGA user testing.

Please note this document is not the final draft. We are still working on harmonizing the content and the internal consistency of the terms and style. The task force also intends to redo the tables to make them consistent with the design patterns (such as in 5.1 and 6.1). In addition, design patterns 2.8, 2.9, 2.6 and 2.10 2.13 and 5.3 and 5.6 need to be checked for overlap. In addition, we are exploring the addition of these sections:

Comments and feedback are most welcome.

3.2.2 Objective: Help Users Understand What Things are and How to Use Them

Not everyone finds learning new things easy, and not everyone can remember new designs. To use a site or application, people need to know what all controls and element are on each page and how to use them. Fewer people can use sites and applications that require users to figure out how to use controls or interact with the page.

Many users, including users with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, cannot easily learn new design metaphors or remember things they learned. Without these skills, it can be much harder or impossible to find what they need, work out what controls do and how to use them.

Many users can be overwhelmed by too many options or too much information. If an individual's reading is slow, then too much information without structure and organization will make it difficult or impossible to use the site.

Using familiar design patterns, terms and symbols is key to helping users who struggle to remember new symbols and design. Users need the following to be familiar:

Element location: Place elements in expected locations. For example, people may look for the search on the top right hand corner of a page. If it is somewhere else, it will be hard to find.

Symbols: Use familiar symbols. For example, people may look for a question mark for help. If you use a different symbol, fewer people will find help.

Text: Use familiar terms. For example, some people have a limited vocabulary. Uncommon terms may cause them difficulty.

Getting help: Always make it easy to find help.

Personalization can be extremely useful for designers who want to offer familiarity and flexibility. Familiarity helps users with cognitive and learning disabilities but is often based on the needs of the individual user. Personalization allows users to customize their interface, which is important as what is familiar for one user may not be familiar to another.

3.2.2.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to complete an action that demonstrates usability.

Test for the following but set up the tests so that the user demonstrates their knowledge and understanding rather than answers a simple question:

Does the user know what the page is about?

Does the user know what actions they can take on a page?

Does the user know where they are in a website, an application or a multi-step process?

Can the user easily find the different sections of content?

Identify the different activities that the user may want to complete on the page:

Can the user achieve the activities without asking for help?

Does the user make errors trying to achieve the activities?

Does the user find them easy to achieve?

3.2.3 Objective: Help Users Find What They Need

3.2.3.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to do an action that demonstrates usability.

3.2.3.8 Pattern: Let Users Go Back

User Need

I want predictable back or undo features so I'm exactly where I was previously, before I made a mistake.

Related User Story: Undo.

Description

Always let the user return to a previous point.

The standard back button is the best way to do this as it is familiar to the user. Many users will try the back button first.

The user should never lose their work if they press back.

3.2.3.8.1 How it Helps

Allowing users to return to a previous point helps prevent mistakes and makes it easy to correct mistakes when they happen.

Examples of mistakes include:

If a person easily makes mistakes or makes them often, it is important that they can go back and make changes without having their work or previous choices deleted.

For example, a user is watching a video. They try to increase the volume but touch a different link instead. A new video now loads. The user can press the back button and return to the video they were watching before. They now know they can try and increase the volume and if they make a mistake, they can easily go back and try again.

In another example, the back button did not work as expected, but took them somewhere else (such as the home page). When they try to change the volume or add a comment they often lose the video they were watching and cannot find the way to get back to it. The user now feels they cannot use any of the website's features in case they lose their main content again. They do not expand the screen, change the volume, or leave comments.

In forms, each time the user has to re-enter data presents a new chance for mistakes to occur. Entering and re-entering data can be stressful and tiring from some people with learning and cognitive disabilities. This increases the likelihood of mistakes and may make it impossible to submit correct data and complete the intended task.

For those with anxiety, memory challenges, and difficulty following directions, the ability to go back and review information they have entered is very important. For example, for some people the task of following directions and reviewing their answers works best as two separate tasks. Being able to enter information with their focus being on following the directions, and later going back to review their answers, helps them be more effective.

When the user has an opportunity to go back and review the data they entered, even if submitted by mistake, it is easier to correct the information.

3.2.3.8.2 More Details

Options for supporting users going back include:

3.2.3.8.3 Examples

Success example:

The user is watching a video. They touch a control accidentally and pressing back does not take them back to the video

While applying A user accidentally hits the home icon and navigates awayompleting an online form when applying for a job. The user is able to go back through all the screens to be sure they did not misunderstand a section or skip an answer. The user can edit any data they mistyped.

Failure example:

Completing an online form when applying for a job. The user goes back a screen because they realize they may have forgotten to answer a question. When they use the back button all data previously entered has been cleared/deleted.

3.2.3.8.4 Technical Details

The following are proposals for WCAG. They experiment with more testable language: WCAG issue 38 and WCAG issue 53

Additional Resources:

3.2.4 Objective: Use Clear and Understandable Content

3.2.4.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to complete an action that demonstrates usability.

Test for the following:

Does the user understandable use of text?

Does the user understand text immediately?

Does the user know unambiguous language?

Is there any content usable without understanding math concepts?

# Is there any representation of math by words instead of numbers?

Is there any support for slow readers?

Does the user understand use of (familiar) symbols?

Does the user understand use of images and multi-media?

3.2.4.2 Pattern: Use Clear Words

User Need

I understand the language used including vocabulary, syntax, tense and other aspects of language.

Related User Story: Clear Language.

Description

3.2.4.2.2 More Details

When using uncommon words, provide an explanation by:

Adding a simple language term in brackets next to it;

Providing a pop up definition; or

Using supported mark up (see easylang).

3.2.4.2.4 Examples

Success example: Plain text with clear words and definition of term.

Your landlord must follow the law.

Your landlord can only use your security deposit (promise money), only for certain things, such as unpaid rent (rent that you owe) and to fix things that you damaged.

Your landlord must return your security deposit (promise money) to you by a clear date. This is usually 30 days after you leave the apartment.

Failure example: Uncommon words and no explanations

A Landlord's Right to Deduct. When a tenant moves into a rental property, he or she will pay the landlord a security deposit. Depending on the jurisdiction, this deposit will be returned to the tenant within a specific time period at the cessation of the lease term, as long as the tenant follows all the terms and tenants of the lease agreement or contract. Select links below to read the laws that pertain to your situation.

3.2.4.11 Pattern: Provide Alternatives for Numbers

User Need

I find words easier to understand than digits.

Related User Story: Math Concepts Language.

Provide alternatives for numbers and numerical concepts.

3.2.4.11.2 More Details

Where an understanding of mathematics is not a primary requirement for using this content use one of the following:

Reinforce numbers with non-numerical concepts, e.g., Very Cold, Cold, Cool, Mild, Warm, Hot, Very Hot.

Use personalization semantics to supply a non-numerical concepts (when mature ) See Personalization Semantics Wiki anddata-numberfree.

Note that other users may find math easier to understand than long text.

Where some math skills are essential for the content:

Content that may need extra support include:

1. size

2. quantity

3. distance

4. time

5. date

6. temperature

7. positive/negative

8. calculation

9. sequencing

10. memory

11. cultural differences

12. alternative representation

For these, consider providing a description or representation of what the number means as a concept.

3.2.5 Objective: Help Users Avoid Mistakes or Correct Them

A good design and use of scripts will make errors less likely, but when they do occur the user should know how to correct them easily without stress or extra steps.

Completing forms and similar tasks is often overwhelming for most users with cognitive and learning disabilities. This includes relatively minor learning disabilities, such as Dyslexia, or attention related disabilities.

Many users with learning disabilities cannot remember numbers, such as those for their post/zip code, Social Security, or credit card. Many users even need to check their phone numbers. This makes entering information slow, and they may need to leave their desks or take breaks.

Also many users have short term memory issues that can make copying text difficult or impossible. For example, if you can remember 7 letters in your head at the same time. They may be able to remember one or two. This makes them much more likely to make mistakes copying as it requires you to remember the numbers or letter accurately.

Note that a lot can be achieved through supporting personalization.

3.2.5.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to do an action that demonstrates usability.

Test for the following:

3.2.5.8 Pattern: Provide Feedback

User Need

As a user who struggles with web content, I need rapid feedback or visual cues to indicate an event was successfully triggered. For example, I need to know when an email has been sent, otherwise it looks as if it has just disappeared.

Related User Story: Support.

For each step in a process let the user know of its status and if it was successfully completed.

3.2.5.8.1 How it Helps
Making the result of each user action clear helps people with a variety of cognitive disabilities:
For example, a user with age-related forgetfulness, may have difficulty remembering how the interface worked. So when they press the send button that may not feel confident that the form was submitted. Feedback, such as a thank you message, will tell them submission occurred and make them feel confident in the process.

During a multi-step task this feedback (user-action feedback) can also assist people with attention or short-term cognitive disabilities remember what they are doing. For example, a user with early dementia may get distracted and then forget exactly where they were in the task. This user-action feedback helps re-orient them. It also helps them avoid leaving a task by reminding them that they are in a process, and where in the process they currently are.

Provide easily-recognizable success or failure feedback with every user action. When possible the feedback should use a consistent and familiar design patterns. For example:

3.2.5.8.3 Examples

Success examples:

Failure example:

There is no progress-indicator (e.g., breadcrumbs) to communicate completed and current steps in a multi-step process.

3.2.5.9 Pattern: Notify Users of Fees and Charges at the Start of a Task

User Need

I know how to start a task, and what is involved.

Related User Story: Support.

Tell the user about all charges at the start of a transaction including typical values. Any conditions and terms should also be available at the start of the transaction in easy language.

3.2.5.9.2 Examples

Success examples:

Failure examples:

3.2.6 Objective: Help Users to Maintain Focus

Distractions can cause users with cognitive disabilities problems such as:

Losing focus on the current action;

Drawing attention away from the task they are trying to do; and

Difficulty for some users who don't know how to understand, avoid, and/or stop them.

Once users become distracted, they may find it difficult to remember what they were doing. Then they can no longer complete their task at all. This is especially problematic for users with both low attention and impaired memory, such as users with dementia.

Items like bread crumbs can help orient the user and help the user restore the context when it is lost. Making breadcrumbs clickable can also help the user undo mistakes.

3.2.6.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to complete an action that demonstrates usability.

Identify the different tasks:

3.2.6.3 Pattern: Avoid Too Much Content

User Need

I can easily identify content that I need, and do not need. Information I need to know and important information stands out, or is the first thing I read and does not get lost in the noise of less important information

Related User Story: Findable.

Description

Provide users with five or less choices on each screen and remove unnecessary content. This can be provided via a simplified version alternative that is generated in real time from the same code base as the main content.

Extra links that do not relate to the main purpose of the page should be limited to the footer section. Extra choices can also be provided using clear and descriptive titles.

This can be provided via a simplified version alternative that is generated in real time from the same code base as the main content.

3.2.7 Objective: Ensure Processes Do Not Rely on Memory

Do not put barriers that stop people with cognitive disabilities from using or getting to content.

Many users have memory issues and/or language issues that can make remembering passwords or remembering numbers, while processing words, difficult or impossible. That can make transcribing text or remembering passwords difficult or impossible.

Sometimes security and authentication put a barrier between users and the tasks they are doing. For example, requiring remembering and/or transcribing passwords often blocks users with cognitive disabilities from accessing content or using a service.

Sometimes developers put a menu barrier between users and the task they are doing so users cannot use the content or service.

Voice XML enables voice dialog systems and voice browsers. An example might be a phone menu system that ask you "dial 1 for internal services, dial 2 for external services, dial 9 for billing services." Sometimes users need to hold multiple pieces of transitory information in their minds, such as a number being presented as an option, while processing terms that follow. Many people with impaired short term memory cannot hold more than two or three pieces of information in their memory at the same time. As a result, they cannot complete this task and cannot get to the place they need to be.

When possible, provide easy-to-use options.

Note that a lot can be achieved through supporting personalization.

3.2.7.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to complete an action that demonstrates usability.

Identify the different activities that the user may want to complete on the page:

Can they achieve the activities without asking for help?

Does the user make errors trying to achieve the activities?

Does the user find the activities easy to achieve?

Can the user do the same thing later (the password may have been forgotten)?

Ask users if they would find this easy to do if under stress or tired.

Ask users were they might have trouble if they are under stress.

3.2.7.3 Pattern: Allow the User a Simple, Single Step, Login

I need the login process to be simple, and not multi-step.

Related User Story: Accessible Authentication.

Description

Provide a simple, single-step alternative for logins

3.2.7.3.2 Examples

Success example:

Allow login with Facebook or use the web authentication protocol and allow single step method that match your security needs.

Failure example:

All login methods involve multiple steps

3.2.8 Objective: Provide Help and Support

3.2.8.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to complete an action that demonstrates usability.

Test for the following:

Are enough user groups represented?

For example, a typical project may wish to include: People living with early stage dementia, age appropriate forgetfulness, intellectual disabilities, different specific learning disabilities and communication disorders.

Identify the different ways a user may "Report Issues and Problems."

Can the user find a way to submit their feedback without asking for help?

Can the user submit their feedback at each stage of the process including from the home page and any place they may get stuck?

Does the user make errors trying to submit their feedback?

Does the user find it easy to submit their feedback?

Does the user's mood deteriorate when submitting feedback? (A sign of frustration)

Ask the users if they would find this easy to do if under stress or tired.

Ask the user where they might have trouble if they were under stress.

Does the user understand the feedback process and are they able to complete the task? Use concrete ways to check that the user understands. For example: Is the user able to identify if/when they will receive a response back? The method a response back may come (e.g. email, phone). Where the feedback goes/what happens to the feedback?

Make sure it is simple to use and does not require a lot of information that will prevent people from giving feedback.

Confirm it is available at different stages in the process and is one click away.

Confirm that when feedback is given and a process is in place for acting on it!

3.2.9 Objective: Support Adaptation and Personalization

Personalization can enable us to really meet the individual user's needs. Some users need extra support which we can provide with minimal effort from the user via personalization. Personalization allows the user to select preferred options from a set of alternatives. Some alternatives may be provided by the content author or app developer and others may be semi-automated. This can include:

Familiar symbols and graphics that the user knows;

Tool tips;

Language they understand such as literal language or common terms;

Less features and options to the optimum number for the individual user;

Keyboard short cuts that are familiar to the user;

Widgets for help.

Personalization also helps with the following:

One use-case we would like to see is providing interoperable symbol set codes for non-verbal users. Products for people who are non-vocal often use symbols to help users communicate. These symbols are in fact people's language. Unfortunately, many of these symbols are both subject to copy write and are not interoperable. That means end-users can only use one device, and can-not use apps or AT from a different company. An open set of references for symbol codes for these symbol sets however, could be interoperable. That means the end user could use an open source symbol set or buy the symbols and use them across different devices or applications. Symbols could still be proprietary but they would also be interoperable.

3.2.9.1 User Testing

Make sure your user testing includes individuals with a range of cognitive disabilities. Do not just ask questions, but ask the user to complete an action that demonstrates usability.

Test to ensure that:

3.2.9.4 Pattern: Support a Personalized and Familiar Interface

User Need

I can change to a version of the interface that is familiar to me, that I recognize and know what will happen.

Related User Story: Adapt.

Description

Provide users with a way to personalize their interface to make it familiar.

This can be done by:

1. Allowing a rollback to a previous interface that the user is familiar with and knows how to use

2. Adding semantics on controls, links and symbols that allows the user to control the experience. For example:

Html 5 autocomplete on common fields;

Adding a toolbar that adds personalized images;

Use attributes in personalization semantics.

Personalization technology is still young and is developing rapidly. At the time of publication HTML autocorrect on fields was the best supported.

3.2.9.4.1 How it Helps

Personalization changes the interface to meet the needs of the user.

Having familiar terms and symbols is key to many users being able to use the web. However, what is familiar for one user may be unfamiliar to another requiring them to learn new symbols. Adding semantics allow symbols and support to be added by an extension or browser that is familiar to the individual user.

A stronger example is people using Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) systems. AAC systems designed for people who are non-verbal often use symbols with or without text.

These users usually only learn one symbol set. They cannot easily communicate with other symbol users in a written format or may struggle to understand different symbols used in different applications. Some symbols are subject to copyright and cannot be shared across applications.

If users' symbols are mapped to the same concepts, then user agents can load the symbols that are understandable by the user and they user can access the web and other applications.

Other support includes autocomplete and extension that help the user fill out forms and understand the content. Many users with memory or executive functions impairments could not fill in forms without asking someone to help copy over information or check their work. Autocomplete, many more users to manage forms by themselves.

3.2.9.4.2 Getting Started

3.2.9.4.3 Examples

Success examples:

A. Mapping User Needs, Persona and Patterns

A.3 Objective 3: Use clear and understandable content and text

A.7 Objective 7: Provide help and support

B. Mapping Design Patterns to User Groups

The table of design patterns and user groups maps patterns from the design guide such as "User safety" and "Task completion" with the groups of users who benefit, such as those with "Memory impairments" and "Reduced focus and context".

Please review the table at Table of design patterns and user groups

C. Guidance for Policy Makers

This section provides guidance for policy makers on how to use the design patterns (general, repeatable solutions to commonly occurring problems) to build a policy regarding web content to ensure that the needs of individuals with learning or cognitive disabilities are addressed. Web content designed without consideration for the needs of individuals with learning or cognitive disabilities may create accessibility barriers to the needs of the end-user. Development of a policy includes the following steps which are discussed in this section:

1. Define the scenarios to be included in the policy (i.e., address the environments or situations in which the policy will apply)

2. Review the different design pattern criteria, which are listed in the following table, and decide if they are relevant to the environmental or situational scenarios.
Note that the design patterns in the following table are linked to their respective areas of the Design Guide which contains detailed information about getting started, implementation, and technical details.

3. Develop a policy with requirements based on an analysis of the environmental or situational scenarios and the design pattern criteria

Table of design patterns and policy criteria

Design Guide Number

Name

Testable through automated mechanism or user testing

Requires user testing with individuals with cognitive disabilities

Can be applied to all content

Important for conversational interfaces

Important for IoT (Internet if Things)

User need level<

Policy makers should familiarize themselves with the design patterns as they relate to the environmental or situational scenarios for which they are responsible. Determine if user testing is needed or desired, with regard to the scope or expense for the affected sites. Refer to the issue paper on user testing for additional information.

User considerations must also be taken into account when developing scenario-based policies, such as individual safety concerns, autonomy and savings in care-giving, and the cost of individuals with cognitive or learning disabilities leaving the workplace earlier than necessary due to lack of appropriately designed content or interfaces.
The following are examples of scenarios that may be covered by a policy:

Emergency services - police, fire, emergency medical services, etc.

Critical services - water, health care, phone and internet services, government services

Workplace content - including but not limited to professional sites and productivity tools

Individual content - apps, interfaces to run home devices, book a cab, write an email; any content or functionality that facilitates autonomy

Examples of scenario-based policies:

Emergency Services: A policy for emergency services might require the inclusion of all design patterns. The inclusion of all design patterns would help to ensure that individuals, regardless of learning or cognitive disability, can quickly access and interpret emergency information and respond appropriately.

Critical Services: A policy for critical services might require any design pattern with a medium to high user need level, as reflected in the table of design patterns and policy criteria. A robust system for inclusion of most design patterns would ensure that individuals can quickly access and interpret information that directly impacts them.

General Legislative Policy: A legislative policy for widespread adoption on website design might include any items that do not require human testing and have a high user need level.

Workplace Legislative Policy: A legislative policy that applies to content in the workplace might include any items that are optionally testable and have a medium to high user need level.

D. Testable Statements for Each Pattern Many of the patterns in the design guide above have a sections of technical details. They link to proposals for WCAG with more testable language and test cases. The task force is thinking of creating an appendix of these statements, with or without a test process. The task force would like feedback if this appendix would be useful.

E. Business Considerations

This section is an early draft. The task force is considering adding a section on the business case for inclusion of people with age related cognitive impairments and learning disabilities. The task force would like feedback if you would find this section is useful and we should continue working on it.

This document can help you meet the needs of underservicing end-users such as high net worth senior citizens - an underserviced 7.1 trillion-dollar growth market and secondary market of high potential millennial impaired by learning disabilities and related situational impairments

The Aging Population as a Market

One of the most reliable market projections is that the population is aging. More consumers are older, and more of the wealth is in the control an older demographic.

As people age, disabilities increase. This includes age-appropriate forgetfulness and a slower speed of learning new designs. This may make consumers feel excluded and that their needs are not considered. Accessibility can give the consumer the trust and feeling of being looked after. In contrast if a site is difficult for people with, the older population is likely to feel that the group is interested in them as a market.

On the other hand, according to Georgia State University's Center for Mature Consumer Studies, today's mature market (those aged 55 and above) already controls 75 percent of America's wealth and 70 percent of its disposable income. Clearly, this expanding demographic is an important market for many organizations.

Additional studies have shown that the mature market is no longer off line and may even be outpacing younger user groups when it comes to adopting new technologies and online media. However, their online needs may be underserviced and seniors manage to complete only 55.3% of tasks online.

For additional information, see the Developer resources page.

F. Change Log

The full commit history to personalization semantics content is available.

2019-07-16: Added Design Guide to appendix.

2020-03-27: Coga TF changed the documents as follow:

G. Acknowledgments

G.1 Participants active in the Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Task Force at the time of publication

Alastair Campbell (Nomensa)

Michael Cooper (W3C/MIT)

Jennifer Delisi (Invited expert)

E.A. Draffan (University of Southampton)

David Fazio (Invited expert)

John Kirkwood (NYC Department of Education)

Steve Lee (W3C/ERCIM)

Rachael Montgomery (Invited expert)

Abi James (University of Southampton)

Justine Pascalides (Educational Testing Service)

Ruoxi Ran (W3C/Beihang)

John Rochford (Invited expert)

Janina Sajka (Invited expert)

Lisa Seeman-Kestenbaum (Invited expert)

Glenda Sims (Deque Systems, Inc.)

Renaldo Bernard (University of Southampton)

Shari Butler (Pearson plc)

Pietro Cirrincione (Invited expert)

Deborah Dahl (Invited expert)

Katherine Diebel (Invited expert)

Chaohai Ding (University of Southampton)

Anthony Doran (Invited expert)

Michel Fitos (Invited expert)

John Foliot (Invited expert)

Andy Heath (Invited expert)

Dr Kinshuk (Invited expert)

Barry Johnson (Deque Systems, Inc.)

Katherine Mancuso (Invited expert)

Jan McSorley (Pearson plc)

Neil Milliken (Unify Software and Solutions)

Mary Jo Mueller (IBM Corporation)

Liddy Nevile (Invited expert)

Joseph Karr O'Connor (Invited expert)

Mike Pluke (Invited expert)

Debra Ruh (Invited expert)

Ayelet Seeman (Invited expert)

Richard Schwerdtfeger (IBM Corporation)

Suzanne Taylor (Pearson plc)

Elle Waters (Invited expert)

Mark Wilcock (Unify Software and Solutions)

G.3 Enabling funders

This publication has been funded in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) under contract HHSP23301500054. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or official policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Some of the work on this project has also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No.780529 and 643399.

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Making content usable for people with cognitive and learning disabilities

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This document is for people who make Web content (Web pages) and Web applications. It gives advice on how to make content usable for people with learning and cognitive disabilities. This document has content about: people with learning and cognitive disabilities, user needs, user testing, design patterns (ways) to make content usable, and advice for policy makers.

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The W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0 provide a wide range of recommendations for making web content more accessible to users with disabilities. Following these guidelines will address many of the needs of users with blindness, low vision and other vision impairments; deafness and hearing loss…

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Top ten apps for visually impaired students

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Top ten apps for visually impaired students

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Top ten apps for visually impaired students

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Smartphones and tablets have helped to close the gap between disabled students and their peers, particularly in the form of apps. Here’s our selection of ten apps that will help a visually impaired

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Written by Typefi on . Posted in News + Events, Partner News

Huw Alexander
Managing Director, textBOX

"The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages of a book."

The words of Anna Sergeyevna, from Turgenev's 1862 novel Father and Sons, echo across the ages and apply more than ever in our own time.

With an estimated 1.4 trillion photographs forecast to be taken globally in 2020, the digital world is becoming an ever more visual place.

A picture can indeed tell a thousand words, but how can images be conveyed to those who cannot see them?

What is alt-text?

Alternative text, or alt-text, is a short description of an image that explains the content of an image to a user or a search engine.

Alt-text is housed in the alt-tag within the HTML coding of an e-book or web page. It consists of the original image source and the alt-attribute:

When a screen reader or search engine encounters the image, they will interpret the image using the alt-text. If the alt-text is missing, the image is not accessible to users or discoverable by search engines. It is effectively silent.

What is bad alt-text?

Using this photograph of WW1 fighter ace, Baron von Richthofen, we can identify examples of bad alt-text usage.

Filename as alt-text.

Random name as alt-text.

Keywords as alt-text.

It is always necessary to have an alt-attribute, but the alt-attribute does not always have to be completed. An empty alt-attribute tells the screen reader or search engine that the image is decorative and not integral to understanding the content.

Why is alt-text important?

As alt-text is hidden within the e-book or web page code its inclusion is often overlooked by content providers. What is unseen is forgotten. The WebAIM Million survey of the top 1,000,000 homepages discovered that 68% were missing relevant alt-text.

"These data show that... nearly half of the images on the web have missing or questionable alt-text."

The dataset was 38,426,701 images, giving an indication of the scale of the issue. Half of the images on the top million websites are silent: inaccessible and undiscoverable.

In addition, academic teaching has witnessed a visual turn in recent years. The silence of the image within textbook and reference content negatively impacts the user's learning outcomes. The provision of alt-text therefore allows content providers to tell the whole story of their content to their whole audience. Human or not.

The benefits of alt-text.

SALES. Increase sales with quality content and design.

LEGAL. Comply with international accessibility laws.

COMMERCIAL. Create a competitive edge.

EDUCATION. Improve learning outcomes.

INCLUSION. Promote equal access to information.

CORPORATE. Tell a positive social responsibility story.

AUTHORS. Help authors tell their whole story.

CUSTOMERS. Reach new audiences.

USABILITY. Enhance the user reading experience.

DISCOVERABILITY. Improve content discoverability.

The challenge of writing alt-text.

"Writing useful alt-text is an art. It needs to convey the same concept as the image, in the same context."

It is a challenge to write useful alt-text, so textBOX have developed the focus|LOCUS method to simplify the creation of meaningful alt-text. Our 10 rules for writing useful alt-text are:

1. FOCUS

Select the main subject of the image, the focus, and build the description around this element using the additional details within the image (locus elements).

2. STRUCTURE

Enable the user to visualise the image.

3. CONTEXT

The context of the image is critical and determines the focus of the description.

4. STYLE

Alt-text must be written with a simple sentence structure. Avoid complex punctuation, characters or organisational elements like bullet pointed lists as screen readers will not recognise them.

5. DETAIL

Include all relevant details to encourage user understanding.

6. USE DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE

Use precise and evocative language to convey meaning and encourage immersion.

7. DESCRIBE, DO NOT INTERPRET

Be impartial and convey the same information available to a sighted user.

8. BREVITY

It is good practice to limit the alt-text to 1-3 sentences for e-books and 16 words for website content.

9. PUT YOURSELF IN USER'S SHOES

Think about what information the reader needs from the image.

10. ACCURACY

Test accuracy by trying to visualise the image from the completed description.

Writing for academic content: Accessibility

When writing alt-text for academic content the aim is to provide a brief overview of the content. With complex content the alt-text acts as an introduction to the image and, depending on context, a detailed description is provided within a linked long description.

For example, the description of the two images below provides enough critical information about the images for the user to decide whether they require more information from a long description.

A side-by-side comparison of a photograph of Baron Richthofen's Flying Circus air squadron during World War and the 1969 album cover of Led Zeppelin 2. The Red Baron sits in the cockpit of his Fokker fighter plane surrounded by his squadron. The album cover adapts the photograph to integrate members of the band into the image.
Writing for website content: Discoverability

When writing alt-text for website content it is important to avoid the temptation to try to game the search engine algorithm by "keyword stuffing." A balance is achieved by using a keyphrase-a keyword-optimised, natural sentence that tells the story of the image that is relevant to both a reader and search engine.

This Discover method embeds accessibility and discoverability within the alt-text.

alt="The Led Zeppelin 2 album cover is adapted from a photograph of the Red Baron Richthofen."

Conclusion

Writing alt-text can be a challenge, but it offers content providers a significant opportunity to engage with their audience whilst simultaneously providing a powerful marketing tool. Due to its hidden nature alt-text is often forgotten, but the coding underworld is a rich environment and enables the translation of the visual into the textual.

A picture can tell a thousand words and this article is a thousand words long. Precisely.

Image sources:

About Huw Alexander

Huw Alexander is the Managing Director of textBOX, a specialist image description company based in London.

He has worked in the publishing industry for over 20 years. His passion for promoting accessibility has developed over the last decade through listening to the stories and issues of users and content providers. textBOX launched in 2018 and he now describes things for a living.

Huw has contributed this guest post to the Typefi blog to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2020. Thanks, Huw!

Tags: Accessibility

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Written by Typefi on . Posted in News + Events, Partner News Huw AlexanderManaging Director, textBOX "The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages of a book." The words of Anna Sergeyevna, from Turgenev's 1862 novel Father and Sons, echo across the ages and apply more than ever in our own time.

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Meaning and other information about all the emojis

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Emojipedia® is a registered trademark of Zedge, Inc; Apple® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc; Microsoft® and Windows® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation; Google® and Android™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of Google Inc in the United States and/or other countries.

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📙 Emojipedia - 😃 Home of Emoji Meanings 💁👌🎍😍

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Emojipedia® is a registered trademark of Zedge, Inc; Apple® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc; Microsoft® and Windows® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation; Google® and Android™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of Google Inc in the United States and/or other countries. Follow Emojipedia on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, or TikTok.

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6 ways to make your social media posts accessible for people with a visual impairment.

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6 ways to make your social media posts accessible for people with a visual impairment.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on 10 ways to make your blog accessible for people with a visual impairment, so many people have said that that post has really helped them and that they're going to now try and make their blog/website accessible which is amazing! I never expected to get such a brilliant response from that post.

Just like sighted people, blind and visually impaired people use social media as well. Social media is such a huge part of our lives now (you can decide whether that's a good or bad thing), and so much content on there is visual which isn't always the most accessible for blind and visually impaired people like myself. However, there are steps that you can take to make your social media posts accessible and inclusive for everyone, I thought I would share some of them with you.

1. Add photo descriptions

As I have previously said, social media is ever so visual, adding photo descriptions makes them accessible for everyone, including people with a visual impairment.

Just because we can't see photos, it does not mean that we don't want to interact with your posts.

Each social media app is unique, so there are various steps that you can take to add descriptions to images.
Facebook
For screen-reader users, Facebook uses artificial intelligence (AI) to describe photos to blind and visually impaired people. For example, it may say "2 people, smiling, dog, grass and nature", or "1 person, smiling, food and drink".

These are not always accurate though, but it's a very good start.

One way you can add photo descriptions on Facebook is by adding photo descriptions to captions. You can write what you would normally say, then underneath write something like "photo description..." or "this photo shows...". Just like alt text, blind and visually impaired people can then picture the image.
Instagram
People with no or very little useful vision used to rely on captions on Instagram to know what the photo shows. If the caption didn't give a brief overview of what the picture showed, then we had no clue whatsoever.

However, Instagram introduced a similar feature to Facebook where it uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to tell screen-reader users exactly what's in the photo. This is a brilliant step forward but it still has a long way to go. Instagram also introduced an alt text feature where users can add descriptions to images that they post, like you would add alt text to images on your website.

Before pressing 'share' and uploading your Instagram post, press on 'advance settings', there is then an option to add alt text to your image. Adding alt text to your posts gives a person with a visual impairment a good idea of what the photo shows, and it also is a way of making social media accessible and inclusive.

You can find out more about the feature in this article.
Twitter
Twitter was the first social media platform to implement photo descriptions. A setting can easily be enabled which allows you to write a description of the image, descriptions must be 420 characters or less though. When a screen-reader detects an image description, it will read it out loud.

It is a brilliant feature, but as it is not automatically enabled, it doesn't cross sighted people's minds to add descriptions to photos that they tweet and isn't widely used which is such a shame.

Find out more about the feature and how to enable it here.

Twitter's image description feature can be enabled on all of the popular operating systems. For people that like to schedule tweets, the feature is also part of popular scheduling apps such as buffer.

As a screen-reader user myself, I am more likely to interact with posts that have image descriptions than those that do not, as I have a clear understanding of what the photo shows.

2. Transcribe memes and gifs

If you're not sure what a meme or "GIF" is then I'll give a quick overview. A meme is an image, with text overlaid, they're often humorous. Gifs are a small clip of video that auto-loops, they can also contain several images.

Gifs are so popular that social media platforms have a gifs option built into them.

However, memes and gifs are not accessible for people with a visual impairment, granted, people with some useful vision may be able to see them, but they are completely inaccessible to screen-reader users as screen-readers just view them as images.

To make memes and gifs accessible, add a description of them in the body of the post, such as 'this meme shows' or 'this gif shows.

3. Use capital letters at the start of each word of a hashtag

Using capital letters at the start of each word within a hashtag means that screen-readers pronounce it correctly and it is also easier for people with some useful vision to read. If you don't do this, then screen-readers do not read it properly, instead, it sounds very jumbled up. It is such a simple thing to do yet the majority of people don't do this. Granted, many people do not realise that they can really help by doing this, or just don't think about it which is absolutely fine.

4. Always use inclusive language

This isn't just in regards to social media, please always consider this. Using inclusive language means that you are being respectful and not reinforcing common stereotypes and misconceptions.

5. Don't overuse emojis in a post

Screen-readers translate emojis literally, meaning that they read out every emoji that is in every tweet or post for example, this can be very frustrating for screen-reader users like myself and it may cause us to scroll past the post. They can also be very hard to read if they are used too much.

Before you post something that contains a large amount of emojis, think about it for a minute: do you really need to use that many? The answer is often no.

6. Post various types of content on stories

Stories on social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are very popular at the minute, however it's important to post a wide range of content on these if you want your story to be accessible to everyone. Screen-readers will not read text or images on stories and they can often be hard for people with some useful vision to see, why not post videos and have a chat with your followers as well so that everyone can interact with some of your content on stories? Remember to add a transcription of the video if you can so that people with hearing impairments or other disabilities aren't excluded from this sort of content.

Those are some of the ways in which you can make your social media posts more accessible for people with a visual impairment.

Do you have any other tips to share? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Holly x

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6 ways to make your social media posts accessible for people with a visual impairment - Life of a Blind Girl

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on 10 ways to make your blog accessible for people with a visual impairment, so many people have said that that post has really helped them and that they're going to now try and make their blog/website accessible which is amazing!

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7 ways to make your tweets more accessible

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7 ways to make your tweets more accessible

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Content Warning: This blog post contains gifs.
I wrote a tweet thread a while back where I started talking about ways to keep accessibility in mind on the platforms we use such as Twitter. Sometimes we don't have control over the platforms we use, and the best we can do is ensure our content is accessible. This tweet thread got a decent amount of attention, but unfortunately, it's easy for things to get lost in the Twitterverse. I decided to write a blog post elaborating a bit more on each of the critical points I made while also ensuring that you could find them more easily.

Be careful with your emoji use

Thank 👏 you 👏 Kent! (don't do the clap thing either, it's a huge pain in screen readers)
- Marcy Sutton (@marcysutton) January 9, 2019

Marcy pointed out here how the clapping hands are actually a pain for screenreaders. Here's what it sounds like if you turn on your screenreader:

"Thank clapping hands you clapping hands Kent." Can you imagine if it was done between every single word on a longer sentence? I see passionate people do this all the time, particularly when they want to say something regarding social issues. I get torn between two worlds because I know how awful it is for screenreaders, but usually, there is a message behind the tweet that I support.

In general, we should be careful about our emoji use. I created a tweet just for the purposes of this blog post. If we clog an entire tweet with just emojis and no words, this is what it sounds like:

I love emojis, but let's not abuse them. We should use words more!

Don't use special characters in your handle or your tweets

I've already mentioned this tweet in previous posts, but I'll repeat it:

You 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 it's 𝒸𝓊𝓉ℯ to 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 your tweets and usernames 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖆𝖞. But have you 𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙙 to what it 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 with assistive technologies like 𝓥𝓸𝓲𝓬𝓮𝓞𝓿𝓮𝓻? pic.twitter.com/CywCf1b3Lm
- Kent C. Dodds (@kentcdodds) January 9, 2019

If you listen to his video, can you hear how much it doesn't make any sense? It may not be as cute or as fancy, but it's usually a good idea to not try to use fonts that are unsupported on the platform. Twitter doesn't give you the ability to choose a font, so you shouldn't try without testing to ensure it works for everyone.

Enable Alternative Text on your Tweets

And actually use them! If you're on your Desktop computer, you can enable them by:

1. Click on your Profile Picture and go to Settings & Privacy

2. Go to the Accessibility Section in the left sidebar

3. Check "Compose image descriptions"

Look, I even recorded it for you!

Once you get this enabled, you should be able to see an "Add Description" on your images. Also, Twitter, why isn't this enabled by default?

Test your Profile's Page Contrast

Have you ever tested the color contrast on your Twitter Profile theme? After checking the default themes on my Twitter profile, I discovered that they have shockingly poor contrast. I use the Webaim Color Contrast Checker to see what the contrast is. The minimum contrast for Large Text is 3:1 and for small text is 4.5:1. Here are the contrast colors:

1. Orange Theme - The background color is #FE6A1F on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 2:88:1. (FAIL)

2. Yellow Theme - The background color is #FAB81D on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 1.76:1. (FAIL)

3. Light Mint Theme - The background color is #7FDBB6 on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 1.65:1. (FAIL)

4. Mint Theme - The background color is #19CE86 on white foreground color which has a contrast of 2.06:1. (FAIL)

5. Periwinkle Theme - The background color is #91D1FA on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 1.65:1. (FAIL)

6. Blue Theme - The background color is #1A94E0 on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 3.30:1. (PASS large text only)

7. Gray Theme - The background color is #ABB8C1 on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 2.03:1. (FAIL)

8. Dark Pink Theme - The background color is #E81C4F on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 4.46:1. (PASS large text only)

9. Light Pink Theme - The background color is #F58EA7 on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 2.26:1. (FAIL)

10. Purple Theme - The background color is #981CEB on a white foreground color which has a contrast of 5.67:1. (PASS both large and small text)

So if you count that, out of 10 themes only 1 (!!) has a passing contrast on both large and small text. 2 pass with larger text. The rest fail. This stinks on Twitter's part, but you can also add your own custom HEX Color Code! I just changed mine to have it be one of the colors in my design on my site.

Communicate with words, not symbols making a picture

"Today's tea" seems to be pretty popular on Twitter, but I can't stop thinking about what this sounds like on a screen reader.

Because I couldn't stop thinking about it, I found a tweet and turned on my screen reader. This is what it sounds like:

So, uh, yeah. Not sure how to fix it aside from not doing it.

Transcribe Memes and Gifs

As of this writing, there is no way to add alt text to gifs. I usually do this by typing in [gif alt: Descriptive phrase] in the body whenever I add a gif. Sometimes I see people respond back to me with a gif message and a gif alt back, and that makes my heart sing. You should do the same with Memes, especially once you have enabled Alternative Text on your photos using the tip above. (Source: Life of a Blind Girl: 6 ways to make your social media posts accessible for people with a visual impairment)

Capitalize the words in your hashtags

This one is new to me, but it makes a lot of sense. Without it, it makes a lot of screen readers mash up the words and sound like a jumbled mess. (Source: Life of a Blind Girl: 6 ways to make your social media posts accessible for people with a visual impairment)

Conclusion

I want to thank people who write blog posts like the one mentioned for the source of the last two sections. If you haven't already, I would read that article because there are items that I wanted to include, but this post was starting to get too long. Even as an accessibility person, I still have a ton to learn about these platforms. I have also learned a lot from great advocates in tech as well, such as Marcy Sutton, Deborah Edwards-Onoro, and Tatiana Mac! Accessibility isn't just about coding, it's about real people who use products that have become everyday use and commonplace.

Remember to think before you tweet. Who are you potentially excluding from reading your Twitter content? If you have any thoughts on this post, feel free to reach out to me on, you guessed it, Twitter.

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7 Ways to make your Tweets more Accessible

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Content Warning: This blog post contains gifs. I wrote a tweet thread a while back where I started talking about ways to keep accessibility in mind on the platforms we use such as Twitter. Sometimes we don't have control over the platforms we use, and the best we can do is ensure our content is accessible.

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6 tips to make social media posts accessible

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6 tips to make social media posts accessible

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6 Ways to Make Your Social Media Posts More Accessible — Flagship Social

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Social media has surged over the past few years, and the importance of accessibility online has grown with it. Learn about accessibility, why you should implement it into your social media strategy, and quick and easy ways to make your posts more accessible.

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In this free webinar from AbilityNet, learn how to make your social media channels work harder and meet the needs of all users.

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In the past year, we've seen a real appetite for tips and tricks on how to make social media more accessible for people who are blind and partially sighted.

Before we dive into our hot-tips, it's important to remember that the changes you make don't need to be drastic, most blind and partially sighted people are likely to have their own ways of making social media accessible (using things lie magnification software, text-to-speech software and braille displays). So, it's just about making a few small changes so that your posts can reach everyone.

Little tips that make a big difference in making your social media accessible

Add image descriptions

Describing photos, or putting alternative text (alt text), for people who are blind or partially sighted is really important, as it allows them to build up a mental picture of what someone who is sighted is seeing automatically.

But, don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to describe every single detail of the image - there is nothing worse than listening to voiceover read out a 1000-word description, which is droning on about how "the man in the far-right corner of the image has a small stain on his shirt", when that's completely irrelevant information. Just pick out a few key details that paint the picture.

How to add image descriptions on different social media platforms:

Facebook - for Facebook, you need to include a description in the text of your post. Write your post first and then tag the alt text onto the end of the post. We recommend putting your image description in brackets, separating it from the rest of the post.

Instagram - When adding a caption to your image, click on "Advanced settings" and then select "Accessibility". You'll then have the option to "Write alt text".

Twitter - just like Instagram, you can add a seperate image description to an image on Twitter; saving you crucial time - and characters! You need to activate the 'Image Descriptions' feature, which you can find in "Twitter Settings", under the "Accessibility" tab. You'll then actually be prompted each time you upload an image to "describe this image".

If you'd like further advice, check out our Connect blog - although this was originally written in regards to Twitter, the tips in this guide can be applied to all social media channels.

Use CamelCase in hashtags

When you're using hashtags, always use CamelCase (capitalise the first letter of every word). This means that the words in the hastag are read out correctly by screen readers - it also makes them easier to read for everybody else. For example, you would write #HowISee, rather than #howisee.

Don't go emoji-crazy

Text-to-speech software reads out a description for every single emoji which is used, so be careful with the amount of emojis you include. For example, if someone puts four star emojis, the software will read out "star star star star".

Videos: to audio-describe or not to audio-describe, that is the question...

Videos don't need to be audio-described, as long as they are audio-led. This means that the audio must be as important as what's on screen - the video should send the same message, both auibly and visually. If it doesn't, try to add a description of what happens in the video either as follow up tweet, or as part of the caption.

Subtitle it up

To make them fully accessible, videos should have subtitles where possible. There are lots of free apps available which make adding subtitles to your videos really easy - so just have a google.

On your marks, get set, post!

Now that you know how to make your social media posts accessible, you're all set to take the world of social media by storm - but don't forget to regularly check for new accessibility features on the relevant platform(s) you use. We'd love to see your accessible posts, so don't forget to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram

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Before we dive into our hot-tips, it's important to remember that the changes you make don't need to be drastic, most blind and partially sighted people are likely to have their own ways of making social media accessible (using things lie magnification software, text-to-speech software and braille displays).

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Adding Alternative Text to Images for Accessibility | LinkedIn Help

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LinkedIn Help - Adding Alternative Text to Images for Accessibility

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Automatic alt text uses object recognition technology to provide a visual description of photos for people with visual impairments. You can replace this text to provide a better description of a photo. Keep in mind that this description will only be read if someone is using a screen reader to access Instagram.

To see and edit alt text for a photo before you post it on Instagram:

1. Start by taking a photo or uploading an existing photo to Instagram.

2. Choose a filter and edit the image, then tap Next (iPhone) or (Android) .

3. Tap Advanced Settings at the bottom of the screen.

4. Tap Write Alt Text.

5. Write your alt text in the box and tap Done (iPhone) or (Android).

To change the alt text of a photo after you've already posted it on Instagram:

1. Go to the photo and tap (iPhone) or (Android).

2. Tap Edit.

3. Tap Edit Alt Text in the bottom right.

4. Write the alt text in the box and tap Done (iPhone) or (Android).

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How do I edit the alternative text for a photo on Instagram? | Instagram Help Center

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Automatic alt text uses object recognition technology to provide a visual description of photos.

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How to make images accessible for people

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Learn how to compose a description of images on Twitter so the content is accessible to people who are visually impaired.

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How do I edit the alternative text for a photo on Facebook? | Facebook Help Center

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You can replace automatically generated alternative text with your own description of a photo.

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Troubleshoot problems playing videos Troubleshoot account issues Fix upload problems Fix YouTube Premium membership issues Get help with the YouTube Partner Program

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In 2020, Twitter created a team dedicated to making the Twitter app accessible to people with disabilities. While the work to increase accessibility continues, below is a list of the accessibility features of Twitter. This list is updated quarterly and includes features that could be considered usability best practices.

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Accessibility features of Twitter | Twitter Help

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In 2020, Twitter created a team dedicated to making the Twitter app accessible to people with disabilities. While the work to increase accessibility continues, below is a list of the accessibility features of Twitter. This list is updated quarterly and includes features that could be considered usability best practices.

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Facebook is committed to creating a great experience for all people. Learn about the features and technologies that help people with disabilities, such as vision loss and deafness, get the most out of Facebook.

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Government Communication Service guidance on Planning, creating and publishing accessible social media campaigns

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Government Communication Service guidance on Planning, creating and publishing accessible social media campaigns

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At least 1 in 5 people have a long-term illness, an impairment or a disability. Many more will have a temporary or situational disability. Health conditions can impact a person's ability to understand a message, either because of a cognitive impairment, or because they are unable to see, hear or otherwise access the information.

Accessible social media campaigns can be more effective because they can be accessed and understood by the widest possible audience - regardless of whether people have a visual, hearing, speech, motor, cognitive or other combination of impairments.

Inaccessible social media campaigns risk alienating our audience, reducing our impact and breaching key legislation including the Public Sector Equality Duty (part of the Equality Act 2010). Accessibility should be built in from the start - it's the right thing to do and will help your campaigns reach more of the people you need to.

On this page:

In this guide we outline the key steps content producers, designers and community managers can take to create social media campaigns that meet the standards of accessibility required from government communicators.

It's been designed to be quick and simple to adopt - you don't need lots of training or expensive tools. There is plenty of support available and we include routes to further learning, and downloadable templates for your teams to use later in the guide.

Accessibility best practice for content producers and designers

Where possible, the following best practice should be applied to your work.

Writing accessible social posts

Stick to 25 words per sentence and avoid large chunks of text

Simplify your message and use free online readability testing tools to quickly test the readability of your content (aiming for an average reading age of 9 years old)

Use line breaks to create space in your social posts - spreading out your copy and making it clearer to read

Avoid using bold, italicised or capitalised text in your posts - contrary to popular belief, they make things more difficult to read

Avoid using non-standard symbols (for example mathematical symbols) as substitutes for words and messages, as these can confuse screen reading software.

For example, "Ensuring accessibility is everyone's business"
instead of "Ensuring accessibility = everyone's business".

Make emojis more accessible

Never use emojis to communicate a core message - the 'official' meaning of an emoji may not match with what you are trying to convey

Limit emojis to 2 or 3 per post

Do not repeat the same emoji more than once (for example multiple thumbs up one after another)

Most text-to-speech and screen reader software will read out emoji descriptions that are included in your standard alt text. However, if you are publishing to a platform that doesn't provide an alt text feature, you should include a description of the emoji in your main post copy immediately after the icon for example [Green Leaf Emoji].

Make hashtags accessible

Limit hashtags to 2 per post

Feature hashtags at the end of the post so as not to disrupt the flow

Use capital letters at the start of each word.

For example #AccessibilityAwareness instead of #accessibilityawareness so screen readers can interpret them more easily.

Make links accessible

Use full links where possible and avoid shortened versions that don't include a description of the content of the link (for example un-customised bit.ly links)

Ensure calls to action provide a clear onward journey for example. 'Read guidance on applying for a driving licence + link'. Links that say 'click here' or 'read more' without any additional context are particularly bad for screen reader users.

Limit links to one per post as people who navigate via keyboard shortcuts often find it frustrating to navigate to multiple links.

Accessibility, colour and contrast

Don't use colour to convey a key message in isolation (for example to describe an action)

Don't use colour in isolation to distinguish between information in charts and tables. Be sure to publish the data too.

Avoid pale colours on pale or white backgrounds (and dark colours on dark backgrounds)

Low contrast is difficult for many people to read. Use a colour contrast checker to check the contrast between your background, text and other components - it should have a minimum ratio of 4:5:1

Think about using a smaller colour palette or check intersecting colours individually when using more than 3

Gradients can be confusing or distracting - use block colours instead.

Accessible fonts

Avoid using bold, italicised or complex fonts which can be difficult to read

Do not use small font sizes to try to crowd content onto social media graphics as a solution to too much copy. Instead, challenge the brief to see whether the information and message can be simplified.

Minimise use of text in graphics using standard best practice for font size and alignment

Do not justify text - ensure text is left-aligned, in line with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) and make things clearer for people with cognitive disabilities

A visual that uses fewer words with larger fonts can be more punchy in a social feed and therefore have greater impact.

Accessible imagery, gifs, animations and video

Ensuring good accessibility often requires holistic thinking. That really comes to the fore when planning and creating video content. Subtitles or closed captions are a good place to start, but they're by no means the whole story.

Different platforms have varying degrees of in-built accessibility tools (you can't always add alt text or embed a transcript, for example) so it's important to build accessibility requirements into your planning, and any creative or filming briefs, right from the start.

Consider this scenario

You're creating a video to publish on Twitter. You decide to communicate your key messages by overlaying designed copy onto your motion visuals. You anticipate most people won't listen with the sound on anyway, and on-screen copy is basically a substitute for subtitles, so that's accessible right?

Not quite. Twitter doesn't currently let you add alt text to videos as standard, and in the absence of a link to a written transcript that a screen reader can 'read' aloud to a user, that type of video won't be accessible to people with visual impairments. In that instance, adding a voiceover that mirrored the on-screen copy (rather than just having a musical soundtrack for example) would help make the video more accessible to people with different needs.

Planning accessible videos, animations and gifs

Here are some more things to think about when planning accessible video and other visual communication assets. Why not share them with your design and video team, or update your creative briefing template today?

Ideally, videos should include subtitles or closed captions and a voiceover

Videos which do not include audio should include a plain English description and a voiceover describing the key visual elements of the content

Avoid moving images behind text which can be challenging for screen reader users

There should be a minimum of 20db difference between background music and voiceovers on video content

Social media platforms such as YouTube allow you to add subtitles and captions easily for free, but should always be manually checked for errors

YouTube subtitles are created as SubRip Subtitle ("SRT") files. These are plain text files that show the sequential number of subtitles alongside start and end timecodes. SRT files can be downloaded and used to apply subtitles to other video file types or create transcripts.

Apply the best practice on font sizes and colour contrast described above when designing video captions

Ensure key guidance messages are included in post copy as well as/rather than within a graphic

Avoid sharing images of printed letters and documents or - where unavoidable - be sure to include a link in the post to an HTML copy of the content in full (not a PDF - that may be inaccessible)

Do not use multiple columns to share critical information in small graphics. And remember, just using bullet points doesn't fix this issue.

Avoid flashing images as that can cause seizures. Nothing should flash more than 3 times a second.

Check transition times on gifs, videos and animations to ensure the audience can follow the content. As a guide, the average person reads approximately 200-250 words per minute, but be mindful of your audience and be aware that some cognitive impairments allow for a lower comprehension rate.

Accessibility best practice for community managers and publishers

Social media platforms are making it increasingly easy to be accessible - with many offering in-platform accessibility settings that make adding alt text, closed captions or subtitles to your content quicker and simpler than ever.

Publishing alt text

Where possible, any important information in an image needs to be described in alternative text ("alt text") for visually impaired users. Most social media tools have options to add alt text, it's a case of taking advantage of those tools and adopting good habits when posting content.

Keep the alt text description short and specific, and don't include 'image of' or 'picture of'. Try to imagine how you would explain the information in a picture over the phone. The less text you use in an image, the less you will have to describe in the alt text. Remember, any words that feature in your image must also be described in the alt text.

Adding alt text to Facebook

More information about adding alt text to Facebook.

Adding alt text to Instagram

More information about adding alt text to Instagram.

Adding alt text to Twitter

More information about adding alt text to Twitter.

Note 1:

Twitter doesn't currently have a built-in feature for alt text on videos. That means if you're creating video for Twitter it's very important to build accessibility into how the video itself is produced - as described earlier in this guide. If you don't, one alternative is to publish a threaded post underneath the video with a description of the content (whether a transcript of the audio or a text version of the copy embedded in the video) in lieu of alt text.

Example

In the following image and linked here is an example of how that works in practice for a video that did not have a voiceover.

The text featured in this video was posted as alt text in a thread underneath the original tweet.

This ensured people using screen readers could access the content of the video - even if they had a visual impairment but as you can see, it creates a less sophisticated execution.

It's better to create your videos in accessible formats from the beginning.

Adding alt text to LinkedIn (desktop only)

More information about adding alt text to LinkedIn.

Publishing to YouTube

When publishing content to YouTube you should ensure that your videos include clear titles and descriptions. The character limit for YouTube descriptions is limited, but if you are hosting your video elsewhere - such as on a campaign website - you should publish a full written transcript there and link to it in the YouTube description to help users with hearing impairments.

Read this blog on why videos hosted on GOV.UK use YouTube.

Templates, tools and resources

This guide describes some of the social media accessibility best practice that you can, and should, apply to your work today. However as a field, accessibility is always evolving and you should evolve your practice too.

Here are just some of the ways you can continue your learning and deepen your understanding:

Update briefs

Update any creative briefs you are using with external suppliers or agencies and make sure they have read, and understood, this guidance.

Social media planning template

Download this social media content planning template which prompts you to think about alt text and image descriptions when planning your social media schedule:

Stay up to date

Stay up to date with the latest developments in accessibility over on the Accessibility in Government blog.

Watch our webinar now

Watch the 'Digital Accessibility for Government Communicators' webinar to learn more about digital accessibility requirements, and how to make your work more accessible.

Join the accessibility community

Join the accessibility community using your public sector email address, email accessibility@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk - there is a wealth of support available to you and your team.

Visit the accessibility empathy lab

Request to visit the Government Digital Service (GDS) Accessibility Empathy Lab or arrange a training session for you and your team from a member of GDS' expert Accessibility Team.

Inclusive Communications Assessment Template

Members of the GCS profession should download the Inclusive Communications Assessment Template and use it during a team planning meeting to test your thinking.

Key takeaways

We all have a part to play

Accessibility clearly has implications for the day-to-day output of content producers, designers and community managers - but it goes much further. As professional government communicators, we all have a part to play in championing accessibility and driving best practice across the profession, and beyond.

It's not just digital

This guide talks about how to improve the accessibility of your social media outputs. But accessibility also needs to be considered when planning and creating content for other digital platforms, as well as offline communications.

There is support available to help you plan and deliver accessible campaigns and communications whether you specialise in media, internal communications, marketing, strategic communications or another discipline.

Accessibility is a journey

It's a challenge to get it 100% right because new platforms and technologies emerge, and people's needs change over time. But making a genuine commitment to adopting good habits and following the emerging best practice on accessibility is a priority for our profession.

Accessibility is rewarding (and drives improved outcomes)

Driving awareness of accessibility best practice amongst your team helps develop them as communicators, and can lead to rewarding outcomes that we can all feel proud of. Creating content that is accessible is a creative challenge that can make your communications and campaigns better for everyone.

This guide was developed by the Government Digital Service (GDS) in partnership with the Government Communication Service (GCS) with input from the Government Equalities Office.

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Planning, creating and publishing accessible social media campaigns - GCS

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At least 1 in 5 people have a long-term illness, an impairment or a disability. Many more will have a temporary or situational disability. Health conditions can impact a person's ability to understand a message, either because of a cognitive impairment, or because they are unable to see, hear or otherwise access the information.

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Accessibility in Microsoft 365 has become a focal point for a lot of organizations over the last two years. With over 1 billion people living with a disability, we want to make sure everyone is included. I have been legally blind since I was 19 years old when I was diagnosed with Stargardts Disease; an inherited retinal disease. I am constantly looking for the best ways to collaborate with others and how to call out when I need some help!

With that in mind, our Office Engineering team has created a great accessibility app called, Accessibility Reminder, and we're happy to share that it's now generally available for Microsoft 365 users! Download it here.

Accessibility Reminder helps drive awareness of the importance of accessible Office documents with tips and tricks to fix accessibility issues. It's the perfect way to "nudge" fellow collaborators that you or someone you know in the group needs the document to be accessible. The Accessibility Reminder app is available in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint for desktop and for the web.

Check out this short video clip of the Accessibility Reminder app highlighting its features and ease of use:

Features

Quickly insert reminder comments in Word and Excel (and slides for PowerPoint) to spread awareness of accessibility issues and use of the accessibility checker.

Create custom comments to notify specific document authors, include personalized messages, organization-specific links, training and more.

View training content and learn more about accessibility and how to fix issues.

Spread awareness of the Accessibility Reminder to encourage further usage and accountability.

How do I install and use the add-in?

1. Navigate to the download site here.

2. Click Get it now and sign in with your Microsoft 365 email address.

3. Once authenticated, click Get it now, fill out the form and check the box to allow the use of your profile and click Continue.

4. You will then be taken to the Microsoft Garage project download site. Click on each application to install the Accessibility Reminder app. Choose Open in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint to get the add-in.

How do I add the Accessibility Reminder app from within the application?

On the ribbon, click on the Insert menu and select Get Add-ins (Alt + N A S). In the Office Add-ins dialog window, search for "Reminder" in the search bar and select Add on the "Accessibility Reminder, a Microsoft Garage project" option. Then click Continue to accept the license terms and privacy policy.

Got questions, comments or feedback?

Let us know in the comments below! We'd love to hear from you. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please comment below.

Special thanks to the Office Engineering team and @Terry Farrell for their help in writing this blog post!

Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 Tech Community! Whether you have product questions or just want to stay informed with the latest updates on new releases, tools, and blogs, Microsoft 365 Tech Community is your go-to resource to stay connected!

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Accessibility Reminder app for Microsoft 365 now generally available!

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Accessibility in Microsoft 365 has become a focal point for a lot of organizations over the last two years. With over 1 billion people living with a disability, we want to make sure everyone is included. I have been legally blind since I was 19 years old when I was diagnosed with Stargardts Disease;...

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Scroll down to
Tech Tip: Testing Results for Alt Text Length
to find the article.

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Accessible Virtual Conferences

Tips on making your conference inclusive

By: Jay Wyant, Office of Accessibility

Conferences are a great way to:

Learn new information.

Increase your professional network.

Energize your passion about your work.

Event organizers and vendors have responded to the pandemic by creating virtual conferences that attempt to fulfill those same goals.

Virtual conferences are a great opportunity to ensure full inclusion. Some people with disabilities cannot travel to conferences. Others may have difficulty with group conversations or asking questions at live events. Virtual conferences can help overcome those barriers.

However, if inclusion isn't designed into the virtual conferencing system, it may unintentionally:

Exclude many potential attendees.

Have a negative impact on an individual's ability to advance in their career.

Limit the reach and earning potential of conference providers.

We asked some of our digital accessibility coordinators for their advice to conference vendors and organizers on how to ensure accessible, fully inclusive events.

Learn how to:

Include your audience in the design

Decide which components to test

Consider magnification and

Ensure you don't repeat common failures!

Whether your next event will be all remote, or a hybrid, great tips for ensuring inclusion: Accessible Virtual Conferences.

Accessibility Challenge 2022: Nurture More Champions Part 1

Proven tips to expand your accessibility community

By: Jennie Delisi, Office of Accessibility
Note: This is the first of a two-part article.
Do you ever ask yourself: how can I get more people to learn about digital accessibility? How can I get more people to create accessible:

Digital documents.

Websites.

Apps.

Software.

Accessibility champion groups can be both formal and informal. Modeling after successful accessibility champions programs may be the answer for you. Recently, we spoke to leaders of accessibility champion programs and accessibility task forces at state of Minnesota agencies. Their groups have been meeting between six months and seven years! They shared key tips for expanding your accessibility community. With so many great ideas, we've divided the article into two parts for January and February.

Want to get a few interested colleagues together or start a more formal group? Their tips will help. Part 1 will cover how to:

Use your "Why" to Inform Your Goal.

Start with a Confident Step.

Identify Potential Champions.

Chat with Other Accessibility Champions from Outside Your Organization.

Get excellent advice from state of Minnesota digital accessibility champion group leaders in Accessibility Challenge 2022: Nurture More Champions (Part 1).

Tech Tip: Testing Results for Alt Text Length

Alt text, or alternative text, is a text description of a graphic. It is machine readable. One use case: people who use screen readers listen to the alt text. The assistive technology typically adds the word "graphic" (not added by the content creator) before or after the alt text.

The Office of Accessibility often receives the question: how long should alt text be?

The typical responses are "around 150 characters," and "short and concise including important details."

Why?

1. Most assistive technologies have an all or nothing approach to alt text. You must listen to the entire alt text. You cannot relisten to a specific section of the alt text or pause in the middle. Options are:

1. Listen to the entire alt text.

2. Stop the alt text part of the way through.

3. Relisten to the entire alt text if you missed something.

2. Information included in the alt text is not navigable like other content. You cannot use a link included in alt text - you have to memorize the address then manually type it into your browser. You cannot copy portions of alt text to place elsewhere without doing more complicated processes.

3. The person may not be able to determine how many images are present with longer alt text. More on this below.

I tested alt texts with JAWS version 2021.2111.13 and NVDA version 2021.3.1. My goal: determine an exact length where challenges happened specific to number of characters. I tested static images only.

For test 1 I used the Chrome browser on a laptop running Windows 10. I opened web pages with content containing alt text with lengths ranging from 113 - 210 characters. Each read from beginning to end as one image with both JAWS and NVDA. For these uses, alt text should be brief because portions of it cannot be reheard, and its content is not navigable or easily copied if it is needed for another purpose.

Next I tested with a PDF that contained two images. Alt text lengths were 180 and 230 characters. During this test, after 151 characters, JAWS announced "graphic" (meaning end of alt text). It then read the second half of the alt text as if it is for a second image because it also finished with "graphic."

For some alt text it is easy to determine that this is really one image with longer alt text. For others it can communicate as if there may be 2 separate images.

NVDA read:

Include longer image descriptions in the document or web page text. Bonus: other readers may need this as well.

Consider the alt text when selecting your image. If you need longer alt text, you may be trying to communicate too much with a single image.

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(Office of Accessibility) Daring accessibility goals? Tips, resources, trainings for amazing results

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Tips on making your conference inclusive By: Jay Wyant, Office of Accessibility Conferences are a great way to: Learn new information. Increase your professional network. Energize your passion about your work. Event organizers and vendors have responded to the pandemic by creating virtual conferences that attempt to fulfill those same goals.

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Our Strategic Objectives encourage departments to lead in the provision of excellent disciplinary and interdisciplinary education, ensure that graduates are well informed, critical, analytically sophisticated and globally employable, and ensure that students and staff interact to build a dynamic learning community that reflects the School's distinctive identity.

Reflecting on inclusion and reasonable adjustments in your teaching provides an opportunity to refresh your practice ensuring it is accessible to students with diverse study experiences as well as disabilities.

Mental health difficulty is a broad term used to describe a continuum between `relatively mild anxieties and frustration associated with everyday life, and severe problems affecting mood and the ability to think and communicate rationally. It is common for students to experience 'mental health difficulties' which may be long-term (have lasted or likely to last for a year or more) and may fluctuate. The impact on study can be wide and varied.
Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students Who Experience Mental Health Difficulties.

SpLDs (Specific Learning Difficulties - or learning differences) are thought to affect 10% of the UK population. Most common amongst students are dyslexia and dyspraxia, with a small number of diagnoses of dysgraphia or dyscalculia.

In practice very many of the characteristics co-occur and overlap. SpLDs affect the way information is processed and learned, which can have a very significant impact on formal education and study, and self- confidence. Research shows SpLDs are neurological and not linked to intellectual ability, socio-economic or language diversity. Students with SpLD often have significant compensatory strengths and can be creative and innovative thinkers.

A predominant strategy for pre-University students with SpLD is to work harder for longer. This is not a realistic long term strategy for University as to do so means students miss out on valuable opportunities for social and cultural capital.

Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs), Including Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia.

Visual impairment is the term used to describe a loss of sight that cannot be corrected using glasses or contact lenses. There are two main categories of visual impairment:

Registered partially sighted, which means the level of sight impairment is moderate

Registered blind, which means a severe sight impairment where activities that rely on eyesight become impossible

Students with visual impairments will experience varying degrees of sight loss; the majority will have some sight which may be useful for different things for each individual. For many, the visual impairment will not be obvious to others, even when someone is registered blind. Using the same teaching and learning spaces consistently is likely to be beneficial and prevent unnecessary additional effort in terms of orientation thus preserving energy for study.

Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students with Visual Impairment.

Unseen impairments and medical conditions cover a wide range of diagnoses including cancer, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, pain conditions, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/ chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and Crohn's disease. Their effects may include fatigue, pain, general ill heath, and a need for more frequent access to food or bathroom facilities. As well as the impacts on academic study, students often miss out on valuable opportunities for social and cultural capital.

Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students with Unseen Impairments and Medical Conditions

Students with physical impairments may have difficulties with mobility, manual dexterity and speech. Some students might use a wheelchair all or some of the time, might need support with personal care and assistance navigating between teaching, learning and other spaces. Some physical impairments are fluctuating whilst others remain constant; significantly impacting on their ability to access study venues, materials and opportunities.

Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students with Physical & Mobilty Impairments

People diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) will have difficulty in

social communication

social interaction

social imagination

The term Asperger's Syndrome is used to refer to the type of autism which has implications for social communication but does not affect intelligence or language development. ASD is characterised by inflexible thinking, rigid behavioural patterns, and a lack of social and communication skills. Individuals with ASD can find unexpected changes extremely stressful due to their strong adherence to rituals and routines. How ASD impacts on an individual and the strengths it provides differ on a person by person basis.

Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students with Autusm Spectrum Disorder (Asperger's Syndrome).

Attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (AD(H)D) is a condition that affects those parts of the brain that control attention, impulses and concentration, and can occur with or without hyperactivity. AD(H)D develops in early childhood and is most commonly noticed around the age of five. Research suggests that 80% of children diagnosed with AD(H)D continue to experience symptoms during adolescence and 67% continue to have symptoms into adulthood. It is also quite common for an individual to have co-occurring SpLDs. The impact of AD(H)D on a student may mean they miss out on valuable opportunities for social and cultural capital.

Good Practice Guide: Inclusive Teaching for Students with Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder

The term 'deaf' covers a very broad spectrum of hearing loss; ranging from mild, severe or profound, along with differing communication needs. Deaf people may wear hearing aids or have a cochlear implant; this can help some understanding of speech or environmental sounds. However, hearing aids and cochlear implants can only assist hearing, they cannot restore normal hearing.

Some deaf students may rely on lipreading and speech to communicate, others may use British Sign Language (BSL), Sign Supported English (SSE), a lipspeaker, use captioning or a notetaker. At times students may choose to use a combination of support, depending on their individual communication needs and the learning environment.

All deaf and hard of hearing students have individual needs, it is essential to check with the student which strategies they find most appropriate for their learning.
Good Practice Guide: Working with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students

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London School of Economics and Political Science

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Our Strategic Objectives encourage departments to lead in the provision of excellent disciplinary and interdisciplinary education, ensure that graduates are well informed, critical, analytically sophisticated and globally employable, and ensure that students and staff interact to build a dynamic learning community that reflects the School's distinctive identity.

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About

tota11y helps visualize how your site performs with assistive technologies. Check out the announcement blog post.

The process of testing for accessibility (a11y) is often tedious and confusing. In many cases, developers must have some prior accessibility knowledge in order to make sense of the results.

Instead, tota11y aims to reduce this barrier of entry by helping visualize accessibility violations (and successes), while educating on best practices.

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tota11y - an accessibility visualization toolkit by Khan Academy

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tota11y helps visualize how your site performs with assistive technologies

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resources, including lesson plan, slide deck and recorded session

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Background

These are the materials that my colleague Tamsyn Smith and I put together for running an interactive webinar on alternative text. The aim is to run this session within an in-person workshop or in interactive webinar format.

As is often the case I include many hidden slides in the presentation which include much more in-depth detail and developer content.

Download the materials

View the slides on SlideShare

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Introduction to Alternative Text - Matthew Deeprose

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These are the materials that my colleague Tamsyn Smith and I put together for running an interactive webinar on alternative text. The aim is to run this session within an in-person workshop or in interactive webinar format. As is often the case I include many hidden slides in the presentation which include much more in-depth detail and developer content.

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Factors involved in making STEM content accessible

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Factors involved in making STEM content accessible

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Factors involved in making STEM content accessible, Aug 2021

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Based on the W3C decision tree

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This page provides guidance on the correct use of alternative text for images within web pages. It uses content from An alt Decision Tree by the W3C. Email Peter Hobley ( phobley@hmc.edu) if you require further assistance.

Alt Decision Tree

Does the image contain text?

Is the image used in a link or a button, and would it be hard or impossible to understand what the link or the button does, if the image wasn't there?

Yes:
Use the alt attribute to communicate the destination of the link or action taken. See Functional Images.

No:

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Yes:
... and it's a graph or complex piece of information.
Include the information contained in the image elsewhere on the page. SeeComplex Images.

No:

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for the user?

Is the image's use not listed above or it's unclear what alt text to provide?
This decision tree does not cover all cases. Please contact Peter Hobley phobley@hmc.edu for further assistance.

Informative Images

Visit W3C's Informative Images tutorial for a detailed discussion. Its content is summarized below as it applies to the Harvey Mudd website.

Informative images convey a simple concept or information that can be expressed in a short phrase or sentence. The text alternative should convey the meaning or content that is displayed visually, which typically isn't a literal description of the image.

In some situations a detailed literal description may be needed, but only when the content of the image is all or part of the conveyed information. Whether to treat an image as informative or decorative is a judgment that authors make, based on the reason for including the image on the page.

Images Used to Supplement Other Information

The following image shows the Venus fountain in Hixon Court. It supplements the adjacent text that explains the history of the sculpture. A short text alternative is sufficient to describe the information that is displayed visually but is not explained in the text; in this case, the text alternative is "Venus sculpture standing on pedestal in the middle of a fish pond."

Example
The Venus Fountain is of the school of Giovani Bologna (1524-1608), last of the great sculptors of the Italian Renaissance. Giovanni was a true artist of his times. He worked in marble and bronze principally, and did everything from small delicate figures, to massive multi-figure pieces.

Note: If the text included a description of the fountain itself in Hixon Court, the image might be considered redundant and therefore decorative. As this isn't mentioned in the text, the image is deemed to be informative.

Images Conveying Succinct Information

This simple photo illustrates how to operate a fire alarm. The information can be described in a short sentence, so the text alternative "Push in the flap and pull down the lever" is given in the alt attribute.

Example

Note 1: An alternative technique would be to provide the instructions within the main content rather than as a text alternative to the image. This technique makes all information available in text for everyone while providing an illustration for people who prefer to view the information visually.

Note 2: If more information than that of the diagram is intended to be conveyed by the image, it may be better to follow one of the approaches described in Complex images. For example, if the fact that this diagram appears on a bottle or if the shape and size of the bottle were relevant pieces of information, use a more detailed alternative text.

Images Conveying an Impression or Emotion

This photograph shows a gathering at Family Weekend. It's not of any one person in particular, so there is no need to identify individuals. It's being used to give the impression that Family Weekend promotes interaction. The text alternative is "Family Weekend brings everyone together." as this best describes the intended impression.

Example

Decorative Images

Visit W3C's Decorative Images tutorial for a detailed discussion. Its content is summarized below as it applies to the Harvey Mudd website.

Decorative images don't add information to a page's content. E.g. the image's information may be given in adjacent text; or the image's purpose may be to make the page more visually attractive.

In these cases, assistive technologies should be instructed to ignore the image by the use of null (empty) alt text should be provided ( alt=""). The addition of text values for these images would add audible clutter to screen reader output or could distract users if the topic is different from that in adjacent text.

The author must make a judgment about whether or not to treat an image as decorative based on the reason for including the image on the page. Images may be decorative when they are:

Supplementary to link text to improve its appearance or increase the clickable area;

Illustrative of adjacent text but not contributing information ("eye-candy");

Identified and described by surrounding text.

The examples below show how to use the alt attribute when decorative images are provided using the <img> element.

Decorative Image as Part of a Text Link

This generic thumbnail photo of the Harvey Mudd campus is used to make the link easier identify and increases the clickable area. It doesn't add to the information provided in the adjacent link text (of the same anchor). In this case, use a null (empty) alt value for the image.

Example
Harvey Mudd's Undergraduate Engineering Program Ranked No. 1 in U.S.

Image With Adjacent Text Alternative

This picture of the Harvey Mudd campus. There is no need to repeat this information, and a null (empty) alt value can be used for this image.

Example
Harvey Mudd's campus mixes architecture from the multiple decades along with green spaces and a variety of trees.

Image Used for Ambiance (Eye-candy)

This image is used only to add ambiance or visual interest to the page.

Example
Colleges across the country have seen an increase in applications, leading to many becoming more selective in their admission processes.

Note: If the purpose of this image was to identify Harvey Mudd College directly or convey other information (rather than just to improve the look of the page), it should probably be treated as informative. The author determines the purpose for the use of the image.

Functional Images

Visit W3C's Functional Images tutorial for a detailed discussion. Its content is summarized below as it applies to the Harvey Mudd website.

Functional images initiate actions rather than convey information. They are used in buttons, links and other interactive elements. The text alternative for the image should convey the action that will be initiated (the purpose of the image), rather than a description of the image.

Image Used Alone as a Linked Logo

The logo image is the only content of a link leading to the College home page. It has the alternative "Harvey Mudd College home" to indicate to where the user will be taken.

Example

Logo Image Within Link Text

Below, the College logo is used to supplement text within a link that leads to the home page. The image does not represent different functionality or convey other information than that already provided in the link text, so a null (empty) value is applied, (alt=""), to avoid redundancy and repetition. In effect the image is a decorative adjunct or visual cue to the link text:

Example
Harvey Mudd College Home

Icons Images and Images Used in Buttons

Content editors will not normally need to insert icons such as printer and search buttons. If you think you have a use-case where this is necessary, please contact Peter Hobley ( phobley@hmc.edu) for further guidance.

Images of Text

Images of text should not normally be used on web pages. If you think you have a use-case where this is necessary, please contact Peter Hobley ( phobley@hmc.edu) for further guidance.

Complex Images

Visit W3C's Complex Images tutorial for a detailed discussion. Its content is summarized below as it applies to the Harvey Mudd website.

Complex images contain more information than can be conveyed in a short phrase or sentence. These are typically:

graphs and charts, including flow charts and organizational charts;

diagrams and illustrations where the page text relies on the user being able to understand the image;

maps showing locations or other information such as weather systems.

In these cases, a two-part text alternative is required:

1. a short description to identify the image, and where appropriate, indicate the location of the long description.

2. the long description - a textual representation of the essential information conveyed by the image.

Describe the Location of the Long Description in the alt Attribute

While a number of techniques are available, the preferred method is to describe the location of the description within the alt attribute of the image.

Example

Bagel Sales Full Text

The chart shows average bagel sales by type for the first quarter in the Café. While sales are fairly consistent each month for plain, wheat and blueberry bagels, there is a significant increase in Jalapeno due to [...]

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Alt Decision Tree and Alternative Text Guide | Harvey Mudd College

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This page provides guidance on the correct use of alternative text for images within web pages. It uses content from An alt Decision Tree by the W3C. Email Peter Hobley () if you require further assistance. Alt Decision Tree Does the image contain text? Yes: ...

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Download for Windows

Accessibility Insights for Windows helps developers find and fix accessibility issues in Windows apps. The tool supports three primary scenarios:

Live Inspect allows developers to verify that an element in an app has the right UI Automation properties simply by hovering over the element or setting keyboard focus on it.

Elements are displayed in the UIA Tree.

Choose your view of the properties: properties relevant to the control type, all properties that have values, or custom.

FastPass is a lightweight, two-step process that helps developers identify common, high-impact accessibility issues in less than five minutes.

Automated checks - the tool automatically checks for compliance with more than 60 accessibility requirements.

Tab stops test - the tool provides clear instructions and a visual helper that makes it easy to identify critical accessibility issues related to keyboard access, such as missing tab stops, keyboard traps, and incorrect tab order.

Troubleshooting allows you to diagnose and fix specific accessibility issues:

View the patterns supported by a control and invoke the associated UI methods to see whether an element responds correctly to user input.

Record application events to verify that your app is generating the expected events.

Use the built-in contrast checker to identify contrast issues and select colors that provide sufficient contrast.

Get started by watching a video:

Or read a tutorial:

Increase your productivity with Accessibility Insights for Windows's keyboard shortcuts.

With your consent, Accessibility Insights for Windows collects anonymized usage data and crash report information. You may opt out at any time by disabling it:

Accessibility Insights for Windows is open source on GitHub:

For additional help such as reporting issues and asking questions:

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Accessibility Insights for Windows · Accessibility Insights

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Download for Windows Accessibility Insights for Windows helps developers find and fix accessibility issues in Windows apps. The tool supports three primary scenarios: Live Inspect allows developers to verify that an element in an app has the right UI Automation properties simply by hovering over the element or setting keyboard focus on it.

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This checklist uses The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a reference point. The WCAG is a shared standard for web content accessibility for individuals, organizations, and governments.

There are three levels of accessibility compliance in the WCAG, which reflect the priority of support:

A: Essential If this isn't met, assistive technology may not be able to read, understand, or fully operate the page or view.

AAA: Specialized Support This is typically reserved for parts of websites and web apps that serve a specialized audience.

This checklist targets many, but not all level A and AA concerns. Note that the different levels of WCAG support do not necessarily indicate an increased level of difficulty to implement.

Success criteria

Each item on this checklist has a corresponding WCAG "success criterion." Success criterion are the specific, testable rules that power the WCAG, described by a reference number and short title. For example, the rule about text resizing is called 1.4.4 Resize text.

Some accessibility issues may have multiple success criterion apply to them. We have identified the one most relevant for each checklist item.

Does this checklist guarantee my site is accessible?

No. However, addressing the issues called out in this checklist will help improve the experience for everyone who uses your site.

The issues this checklist prompts you to check for covers a wide range of disability conditions. There is no such thing as "perfect accessibility" or a site being "100% accessible." You should be wary of companies and services that make such promises. If you need professional accessibility help, use professional accessibility services.

Color contrast

Color contrast is how legible colors are when placed next to, and on top of each other.

Next steps

Remember to periodically check your site to ensure it is still accessible. The A11Y Project also strongly encourages you to verify your testing by hiring a professional tester.

Further reading

TetraLogical has a good in-depth, yet still high-level explanation of the WCAG. Check it out if you want to learn more about its history and principles.

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A beginner's guide to digital accessibility.

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Six things you need to audit your site for accessibility

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Six things you need to audit your site for accessibility

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This article is part 2 of my series, how to do an accessibility audit. It will give you step-by-step instructions to test a complete website for accessibility compliance. It assumes that the website you are testing meets the following criteria:

The website has a content management system

The website consists of a set of templates and components that are reused across the site.

Auditors need the following information to complete a site-wide accessibility audit:

(1) The auditor must be provided with a list of accessibility compliance levels to test. E.g. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level A, AA, and/or AAA. Note that even the W3C doesn't recommend trying to meet all criteria for AAA.

(2) The aditor requires a list of page links to test that include:

Representative pages from every kind of template on the site

Coverage of all components used across the site

An optional percentage of extra pages to test as a sanity check (e.g. pick pages that are popular according to analytics testing reports)

A list of "Happy Path" flows to test (e.g. sign in flow, purchase flow, etc.)

Typically I get this information from the technical team that maintains the site.

(3) The WCAG guidelines cover a range of criteria that includes page interactivity, visual design, and code. In some cases, some of this criteria would have been tested already during the design process. For example, contrast levels in the design may have already been tested in the design phase. The auditor needs to understand which criteria they will be checking.

In general, I recognize 4 main types of criteria that can be tested. Those pertaining to interactivity, design, code, and copy.

(4) The auditor must be provided with a list of device types to test the site. E.g. Is it a desktop-only audit, or should mobile devices be used for the audit? I have a POV on this that I will blog about soon.

(5) The auditor may use their tool(s) of choice to test the site, unless specific tools are specified. Some tools include:

(6) The auditor would benefit from familiarity with the following reference material to assist them in the audit process:

Helpful links:

Accessible sites for reference (to see how it is done properly elsewhere):

WCAG Guideline Manual Test Cases

The table below lists WCAG guidelines that need manual tests and what those manual tests are for levels A and AA. I did not include AAA to save space. Let me know if you would like those in the comments and I'll post them.

For each of the pages provided to the auditor:

Use an automated tool to highlight issues that can be caught by a machine.

Perform the manual tests described in the table below.

For each of the "Happy Paths" provided:

Attempt to go through the flows with just your keyboard

Then go through the flows with your keyboard and a screen reader. Really listen to ensure that users who are not sighted are being given enough context to understand the experience.

Note: The letters beside some of the guidelines indicate what specialist must fix that issue. i=Information Architect, d=Designer, c=Copywriter, and no letter at all means Developer. Note: The letters beside some of the guidelines indicate what specialist must fix that issue. i=Information Architect, d=Designer, c=Copywriter, and no letter at all means Developer.
1.1.1-A-Non-text Content: Use automated tool to check for missing image alt attributes. Automated tools can also check for redundant alt attributes.

1.1.1-A-Non-text Content: Ensure that CSS background images are not be used for images that convey important information.
TOOL: Web developer toolbar
METHOD: Images > Outline All Images
- Validate that all images that convey important information have outlines.
(Background images will not be outlined).

1.1.1c-A-Non-text Content: Check if the text alternative is appropriate (i.e. conveys information, not filenames, and images that should be ignored by assistive technology have null alt attributes ("").

1.2.1-A-Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded): Validate that:
(1) A descriptive text transcript (including all relevant visual and
auditory clues and indicators) is provided for non-live, web-based audio
(audio podcasts, MP3 files, etc.) and
(2) A text or audio description is provided for
non-live, web-based video-only (e.g., video that has no audio track).

1.2.2-A-Captions (Prerecorded): Validate that synchronized captions exist for videos that include all dialogue and sound effects.

1.2.3-A-Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded): Validate that a descriptive text transcript OR audio description audio track is provided for non-live, web-based video.

1.2.4-AA-Captions (Live): Validate that synchronized captions are provided for all live multimedia that contains audio (audio-only broadcasts, web casts, video conferences, Flash animations, etc.)

1.2.5-AA-Audio Description (Prerecorded): Validate that audio descriptions are provided for all video content.
NOTE: Only required if the video conveys content visually that is not
available in the default audio track.

1.3.1-A-Info and Relationships: Use automated tool to check for failures (not warnings) about the document's heading structure.

1.3.1-A-Info and Relationships: Use automated tool to check for input elements that are not associated with their labels.

1.3.1-A-Info and Relationships: Validate that changes in text presentation are not used to convey information without using appropriate markup (e.g. text styled as a heading but not marked up with heading tags).
TOOL: Web developer toolbar
METHOD: Outline > Outline Headings (you can also check off "Show Element Tag Names" to see the heading level)
- Validate that there is no heading on the page that has the APPEARANCE of a heading but no heading tag.

1.3.1-A-Info and Relationships: Validate that data tables are marked up using appropriate table markup (including specified IDs or headers for columns/rows).
RESOURCE: Creating Accessible Tables
TOOL: WAVE Toolbar
METHOD: Run a page-level test with WAVE.
- Refer to Details Tab > Structural Elements and ensure that all tables
on the page are reported.
- Ensure that a table caption is reported for each table.
- Ensure each heading in the table has a "col th" or a "row th".
OR use the Web developer toolbar:
- Outline > Tables, table cells, table captions, with "Show Element
Tag Names" turned on.

1.3.1-A-Info and Relationships: Validate that layout tables do not use any attributes associated with data tables (e.g. scope and headers for columns/rows).
TOOL: Web Developer Toolbar
METHOD:
- This test is for LAYOUT TABLES ONLY (not for tabular data).
- Navigate to Outline > Tables in the toolbar to find layout tables, with
"Show Element Tag Names" turned on. This will display any tables on
the page and allow you to assess if they are layout tables.
- For layout tables, ensure that there are no data table attributes used
(e.g. scope and <th> tags). You will be able to see the tag used.

1.3.2-A-Meaningful Sequence: This test is for LAYOUT TABLES ONLY: Validate that an HTML layout table makes sense when linearized.
TOOL: Web Developer Toolbar, Lynx Viewer
METHOD:
- This test is for LAYOUT TABLES ONLY (not for tabular data).
- With the Web Developer Toolbar, navigate to Outline > Tables in the
toolbar to find layout tables, with "Show Element Tag Names" turned
on. This will display any tables on the page and allow you to assess if they
are layout tables.
- If there are layout tables, copy and paste the page URL and paste it into
the Lynx Viewer to see how the table looks when the content is linearized.

1.3.3c-A-Sensory Characteristics: Validate that instructions on the site do not depend on sensory characteristics like sight (e.g. "Click on the blue button to continue") or sound (e.g., "A beeping sound indicates you may continue.").

1.3.3-A-Sensory Characteristics: Look at controls on the page and validate that the instructions on how to use the controls do not relay on sensory characteristics like color, shape, size, etc. An example would be a button to toggle something ON or OFF that relies on color or position of the button to indicate current status. It shouldn't rely on color or position, it should say ON or OFF.

1.4.1c-A-Use of Color: Validate that text alternatives include information conveyed by color differences.

1.4.1d-A-Use of Color: Validate that color alone is not used to distinguish links from surrounding text unless the luminance contrast between the link and the surrounding text is at least 3:1 and an additional differentiation (e.g., it becomes underlined) is provided when the link is hovered over or receives focus.

1.4.2-A-Audio Control: Validate that a mechanism is provided to stop, pause, mute, or adjust volume for audio that automatically plays on a page for more than 3 seconds.

1.4.3-AA-Contrast (Minimum): Validate that:
(1) Text and images of text have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1,
AND
(2) Large text (over 18 point or 14 point bold) has a contrast ratio of at
least 3:1

1.4.4-AA-Resize text: Validate that text can be resized up to 200% and remain legible.
TOOL: Firefox browser
METHOD:
- With the page open in Firefox, navigate to View > Zoom > Zoom Text
Only.
- Use command+ (command key and plus sign) to increase the size of the text until it is around 200% bigger. See if the layout breaks so much that you can't read the text anymore. It doesn't matter if the layout breaks a bit as long as the text is still legible.

1.4.4-AA-Resize text: Validate that form controls resize along with visually rendered text.
TOOL: Firefox browser
METHOD:
- With the page open in Firefox, navigate to View > Zoom > Zoom Text
Only.
- Use command+ (command key and plus sign) to increase the size of the text until it is around 200% bigger. See if the form controls also grow in size along with the text.

1.4.5-AA-Images of Text: For Images of text: Validate that the image is a logo and has appropriate alt attribute. Or, validate that the image can be customized (i.e. increased in size without losing legibility)

2.1.1-A-Keyboard: Automated tools can detect the presence of possible javascript jump menus. Would require a manual test to ensure that the jump menu is in fact inaccessible (i.e. triggers a new page on change without activating with a button). Tools can also detect the presence of device-dependent event handlers.

2.1.1-A-Keyboard:
(1) Validate that all critical user flows are achievable through keyboard alone. (2) Validate that all remaining content is accessible through keyboard alone.
TOOL: Keyboard and/or Screen Reader
METHOD: If using a screen reader, ensure you are using the compatiblebrowser for your screen reader of choice.
- If using Safari and Voiceover,
configure Safari so that you can tab through all elements, not just forms:
Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Accessibility > Press Tab to
highlight each item on a webpage.

2.1.2-A-No Keyboard Trap: Validate that there are no keyboard traps. These would be most likely to occur in overlays and other interactive elements on the page such as video players or image galleries.
- Note that all keyboard traps will probably be found when investigating
guideline 2.1.1

2.2.1-A-Timing Adjustable: Automated tools can detect use of <meta http-equiv="refresh"> tags and will add this to a report.

2.2.1i-A-Timing Adjustable: Validate that if a page or application has a time limit, the user is given options to turn off, adjust, or extend that time limit.

2.2.2-A-Pause, Stop, Hide: Auotmated tools can detect use of the <blink> tag and <marquee> element, and <meta http-equiv="refresh"> tags

2.2.2i-A-Pause, Stop, Hide: Validate that:
(1) Automatically moving, blinking, or scrolling content that lasts longer
than 5 seconds can be paused, stopped, or hidden by the user, i.e. HAS
CONTROLS, and
(2) Automatically updating content (e.g., automatically redirecting
or refreshing a page, a news ticker, AJAX updated field, a notification
alert, etc.) can be paused, stopped, or hidden by the user or the user can
manually control the timing of the updates.

2.3.1-A-Three Flashes or Below Threshold: Validate that no page content flashes more than 3 times per second unless that flashing content is sufficiently small and the flashes are of low contrast and do not contain too much red.

2.4.1-A-Bypass Blocks: Validate that a link is provided to skip navigation and other page elements that are repeated across web pages OR a page has proper heading structure.
TOOL: Keyboard.
METHOD:
- Tab into the page and make sure there is a skip navigation link before the
global navigation menu (and anywhere else where it says in the wireframes
that one should be)
- Tab into the "skip navigation" link. Hit Enter on your keyboard.
The page should scroll the content area into view. Hit tab again to make sure
that the tab focus is now in the content area.

2.4.1-A-Bypass Blocks: Automated tool can validate that frames are appropriately titled & skip links are not broken.

2.4.2-A-Page Titled: Validate that the web page has a descriptive and informative page title.

2.4.3-A-Focus Order: Validate that navigation order of links, form elements, etc. is logical and intuitive.

2.4.4c-A-Link Purpose (In Context): Automated tool can validate if links contain text, or if there are redundant links (adjacent links that go to the same place), or if linked images are missing alt text.

2.4.4-A-Link Purpose (In Context): Validate that the purpose of each link (or form image button or image map hotspot) can be determined from the link text alone, OR from the link text and its context, by doing the following:
TOOL: Web inspector
METHOD:
(1) Locate content needed to understand how link text describes the purpose
of the link.
(2) Check whether the content is contained in the same sentence, paragraph,
list item, or table cell, or in the preceding heading.

2.4.4-A-Link Purpose (In Context): Validate that links (or form image buttons) with the same text that go to different locations are readily distinguishable (i.e. not in the same context in the markup; not in the same paragraph, list item, etc.
TOOL: Web inspector
METHOD:
(1) Locate links that have the same text.
(2) Check whether the links are contained in the same sentence, paragraph,
list item, or table cell, or in the preceding heading. If they are, that is a
problem.

2.4.4-A-Link Purpose (In Context): Validate that null alt is not used for images where images are the only content in a link.
TOOL: WAVE toolbar. The WAVE toolbar will tell you if there are empty links on the page.

2.4.5-AA-Multiple Ways: Validate that at least two of the following are available: a list of related pages, table of contents, site map, site search, or list of all available web pages.

2.4.6-AA-Headings and Labels: Automated tools can advise if there are missing a missing <h1> primary heading level.

2.4.6c-AA-Headings and Labels: Validate that page headings and labels for form and interactive controls are informative. Avoid duplicating heading (e.g., "More Details") or label text (e.g., "First Name") unless the structure provides adequate differentiation between them.

2.4.7-AA-Focus Visible: Validate that it is visually apparent which page element has the current keyboard focus (i.e., as you tab through the page, you can see where you are).
TOOL: Keyboard.

3.1.1-A-Language of Page: Validate that the language of the page is identified using the HTML lang attribute (<html lang="en">, for example). Can be validated with an automated tool.

3.1.2-AA-Language of Parts: Validate that the language of page content that is in a different language is identified using the lang attribute (e.g., <blockquote lang="es">).

3.2.1-A-On Focus: Validate that when any page element receives focus, it does not result in a substantial change to the page, the spawning of a pop-up window, an additional change of keyboard focus, or any other change that could confuse or disorient the user. (E.g. Opening a new window when the page is loaded, or using a script to remove focus when focus is received).
- For example, links that open in a new window or a popup window should have an icon that warns the user they are special.

3.2.2-A-On Input: Automated tools can detect when interactions on the page launch new windows. You still need to validate that the instance is missing an warning to assess that it is breaking the guideline.

3.2.2-A-On Input: Validate that when a user inputs information or interacts with a control, it does not result in a substantial change to the page, the spawning of a pop-up window, an additional change of keyboard focus, or any other change that could confuse or disorient the user unless the user is informed of the change ahead of time. (e.g. Automatic submission of a form and presentation of new content without a warning, or launching some action upon selection of a radio button, check box, or select list).

3.2.3-AA-Consistent Navigation: Validate that navigation links that are repeated on web pages do not change order when navigating through the site.

3.2.4-AA-Consistent Identification: Validate that elements that have the same functionality across multiple web pages are consistently identified. For example, a search box at the top of the site should always be labeled the same way.

3.3.1-A-Error Identification: Validate that required form elements or form elements that require a specific format, value, or length provide this information within the element's label.
TOOLS: Web inspector, Screen reader
- The required field indicator (or "optional" indicator) should be
visually close to the text label for that field. Check the code to ensure it
is within the label tag.
- When that field receives keyboard focus, a screen reader should announce
the required field indicator, e.g. "Name *" would be read,
"Name star"

3.3.1-A-Error Identification: Validate that form validation errors are presented in an efficient, intuitive, and accessible manner.
RESOURCES: Creating Accessible Forms
TOOLS: Screen reader
METHOD:
- Fill out the form with your keyboard and leave some fields blank or fill
them out wrong purposefully.
- When the form is submitted, the first field that has an error should
receive keyboard focus, and that error should be read out by the screen
reader.
- As you tab through the rest of the form, any field with an error should
read the error out.

3.3.2-A-Labels or Instructions: Automated tool can validate if label text is empty.

3.3.2i-A-Labels or Instructions: Validate that sufficient labels, cues, and instructions for required interactive elements are provided via instructions, examples, properly positioned form labels, and/or fieldsets/legends. An example of a failure would be not including a text label for a set of phone number fields.

3.3.3-AA-Error Suggestion: Validate that if an input error is detected (via client-side or server-side validation), suggestions are provided for fixing the input in a timely and accessible manner.

3.3.4-AA-Error Prevention (Legal, Financial, Data): Validate that if the user can change or delete legal, financial, or test data, the changes/deletions can be reversed, verified, or confirmed.

4.1.1-A-Parsing: Check pages with the W3C Validator, paying close attention to errors in markup syntax, duplicate IDs, etc.

4.1.2-A-Name, Role, Value: Validate that markup is used in a way that facilitates accessibility. This includes following the HTML/XHTML specifications and using forms, form labels, frame titles, etc. appropriately.
TOOLS:
W3C Validator
METHOD: Run a validation test and go through the results with a front end developer to assess which of the issues need to be fixed (the validator throws many false negatives).

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Six things you need to audit your site for accessibility

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This article is part 2 of my series, how to do an accessibility audit. It will give you step-by-step instructions to test a complete website for accessibility compliance. It assumes that the website you are testing meets the following criteria: The website has a content management system The website consists of a set of templates and components that are reused across the site.

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Accessibility audit checklist

This is a checklist of items for an accessibility audit, which users with some technical expertise can use to assess their website against the published WCAG 2.1 standards.

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Accessibility audit checklist - NHS Digital

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Accessibility audit checklist This is a checklist of items for an accessibility audit, which users with some technical expertise can use to assess their website against the published WCAG 2.1 standards.

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This section details how to tackle an audit. It assumes a good existing knowledge of the WCAG 2.1 criterion and how their techniques can be applied on a website. For each page or user journey within the scope of an audit, the process below can be applied to check for accessibility issues.

A page can be split into two distinct parts - the structure of the website itself (e.g. navigation, styling and the website's markup language) and the content on the page (e.g. text, images and things that are different on each page).

A step-by-step breakdown of how to audit can be found on Microsoft's Accessibility Insights for Web Extension by clicking the 'Assessment' button, but the following method is a more natural and efficient way of covering the audit checks.

Tools Required

Screen Reader - NVDA, VoiceOver/TalkBack (mobile)

Magnifier - Windows Magnifier/ZoomText/OS X Magnifier

Automated Tools - Microsoft Accessibility Insights & Axe Other Tools - W3 Validator, WebAim Contrast Checker

Markup

Firstly, inspect the HTML of the page to determine if there are any accessibility issues. These could include:

Tags not closed/complete

Styling in HTML rather than CSS

Elements not having the correct labels and attributes (e.g. forms have labels linked to them)

ARIA labels assigned correctly

Page language not declared or elements with a different language are not defined

Parsing errors - use W3 Validator to check this

Semantic HTML not used appropriately (e.g. tables for whitespace/layout). kent.gov.uk

Keyboard and Screen Reader

Reload the page, then run through the page from top to bottom using only keyboard keys (Shift, Shift+Tab, Arrow Keys, Enter and ESC) with a screen reader running. This test will identify most issues with content and navigating around the website. Things to look out for:

The page and all its elements should be fully navigable and usable with a keyboard only

The user should not get trapped within an element when using a keyboard-only

The first element should be a button to skip the navigation called a "skip to content" button

Images are defined to the screen reader

If decorative, the alt text should = "", or the image is implemented using CSS and the screen reader skips it

Else the alt text should adequately describe the image

For complex images, the alternative can be a text description elsewhere on the page so long as this is clear

Images do not contain text unless essential (e.g. name badges within the image)

Branding text and logos are classed as essential

SVGs are also fine as they allow text in the image to be customised and controlled with assistive technologies

Text is read by the screen reader

Links are clear and descriptive in context
'Read more' or 'click here for example' links are not suitable

Keyboard focus is highlighted in a colour that meets contrast requirement against other elements

Contrast of text is above 4.5:1 and non-text elements are above 3:1. Check this using the WebAIM Contrast Checker

Content does not rely on sensory characteristics, including colour not used as the method of conveying content/distinguishing visual elements

When additional content is presented when an element is focused on, the content should be focused on and escapable

When information is inputted, the page should not substantially change/disorient the user

· Ensure that the keyboard journey follows a logical sequence (e.g. navigation tabs through in order) and elements that are linked follow similar sequences.

No Styles

The web page should then be checked again using the keyboard-only and with a screen reader but this time with the CSS styling removed. This check should be done in Internet Explorer by going to 'View' > 'Style' > 'No Style'. This check can be done in Chrome, but it requires stylesheets to be manually deleted in Inspect Element which is a lot more difficult than the dedicated IE button.

You should check that:

Reading and navigation order are logical and intuitive

Core functionality of elements still works

Page is still fully navigable with the keyboard

No artefacts that could disorientate the user appear.

Additional Checks

Finally, the following should be checked if appropriate (e.g. they appear on the page in question).

Automated Tests

After a manual audit, use an automated tool to confirm your findings and pick up on things you may have missed. Tools such as Axe will analyse a page to produce a report on the structural errors it has found. These tools will only pick up structural errors however, which only covers off 20-30% of WCAG guidance.

Forms

Check forms on the website to ensure that:

Labels match and are descriptive

Form elements are keyboard navigable

Form elements are screen reader compatible

Form elements have accessible names

If the user can change or delete legal, financial or test data, these changes/deletions can be reversed, verified or confirmed

Order of form elements is logical

Errors identified appropriately and fixes suggested.

Multimedia

Videos should be checked that they:

Can be fully controlled with a keyboard only

Do not play automatically

Provide synchronised closed captions

Provide text transcripts

Provide audio descriptions if information is provided in the video visually but not audibly displayed (e.g. by narrator).

Audio elements should be checked that they:

Have controls to stop, pause, mute or adjust volume, and that these controls are keyboard accessible

Do not play automatically

Any information is conveyed in an alternative format.

Carousels should ensure that:

Images meet accessibility requirements

All functionality can be controlled with a keyboard

Mechanisms are present for the user to pause, stop and hide the carousel.

Other multimedia-based checks:

No page content should flash more than 3 times per second

Functionality triggered by moving the device can be disabled and equivalent functionality is provided via standard controls like buttons.

Documents

A subset of non-exempt documents hosted on the website should be tested for accessibility. For a detailed breakdown of what to check for documents, see the Document and PDF Guide. kent.gov.uk

If a Microsoft document, ensure that the 'Accessibility Checker' says there are no accessibility issues

Some warnings may need your judgement. For example, assessing table structure will be a case of tabbing through with a screen reader to ensure that the order is logical.

You will still need to do the following manual checks that the checker cannot do:

Information not conveyed using colour alone or that relies on one sense

Link purpose is clear and descriptive

Alt text is appropriate

Images do not contain text

Headings are set using 'Styles' and are therefore collapsible and show up in navigation

Videos and audio can be controlled and have the relevant alternative formats (e.g. captions and audio descriptions on videos).

If a PDF, ensure that:

PDF is a PDF/A - this is true if the content can be highlighted and copied

Titles and headings are defined

Contrast requirements are met

Links have purpose and are clear in context

Instructions do not rely on sensory characteristics

Images have alternatives

Tables have descriptions

Bookmarks are available to help the user navigate.

Maps

Maps are non-accessible by design; they are visual ways of interacting with directions and information. There is an exemption for maps in the Regulations because of this, but providing that there is an obvious alternative method of providing the information that the map is displaying on the page (e.g. an address pinned on a map is listed in text form below it).

Responsiveness

Several additional checks should be performed on the page to ensure that it is widely compatible with assistive tools and different devices. It could be useful to do these tests on another device/OS (e.g. a mobile), with things to look out for including:

Content displaying properly when text spacing, or line height is increased

All functionality can be performed with a single touch/click

Functionality dependent on clicking/touching responds when the click is lifted rather than pressed (onmouseup should be used)

The web page displays and is functional on a touch-screen mobile device

Content is not obscured, and horizontal scrolling not enabled when viewport width is decreased to 320px

The page is readable and functional when zoomed to 200%.

Content and functionality are not lost when zoomed to 200%.

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This section details how to tackle an audit. It assumes a good existing knowledge of the WCAG 2.1 criterion and how their techniques can be applied on a website. For each page or user journey within the scope of an audit, the process below can be applied to check for accessibility issues.

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Introduces the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) international standard, including WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1, and WCAG 2.2. WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.

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Accessible webinars – making online work for everyone

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Accessible webinars – making online work for everyone

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Online presentations and web-based seminars (webinars) are becoming more mainstream as educational institutions and training providers look for more efficient ways of supporting learners. But how do webinars work for people with disabilities? This blog post by Alistair McNaught looks at how to get the most from webinar opportunities. It is based on guidance developed by Alistair McNaught and Paul Richardson.

The 3 P's of accessible webinars are Planning, Presentation and Post event follow-up. Different webinars systems have markedly different degrees of accessibility but an accessible system does not guarantee an accessible experience because the way the webinar is delivered can have a major impact for better or for worse.

Planning

The single most important thing you can do is to proactively invite people with disabilities to contact you in advance. Somewhere on the joining instructions ensure you have a clear statement along the lines of ' We want to make this a positive experience for all participants. If you have particular access needs (for example visual impairment, dyslexia, deafness etc) please contact us at the following email so we can work together to get you as good an experience as we can.' You do not have to be an expert in accessibility to make a difference. You just need to understand the issues and work out how, within the opportunities available to you, to improve the experience.

Planning principles

Make sure you know what you can offer. It's better to be proactive about a standard offer that you can fulfil (for example an accessible PowerPoint in advance) than create false expectations that you can't (for example "Tell us what you'd like. A BSL video embedded in the presentation? Oh; we can't do that.").

Be accessible from the beginning. Ensure the source presentation slides have explanatory notes in the notes field. This will make it much quicker to create a transcript or alternative format for different access needs.

Make sure that adding value to one participant doesn't make the experience worse for everybody else. For example, getting everyone to use the microphone instead of the text chat option might make life easier for your blind participant but may make it harder for everyone else since only one can contribute at a time and lag / latency could crash out slow connections. Instead, consider building in reflection points where the moderator can summarise the threads in the text chat.

Clarify expectations and conventions at the beginning. If you don't want people to worry about their poor spelling in the text chat pane then be explicit that the act of contributing is valued more highly than the art of spelling,

If 'non-standard' accommodations are used check with the disabled participant how open or otherwise they want to be. A blind participant may need discussion text from the chat pane re-voiced if the webinar platform is not accessible. Other participants may be annoyed by you reading out the text pane if they don't realise why you need to. How do you explain this? "This is necessary for accessibility"? Or "Fred is blind and this will really help him"? Different people have different preferences but the clearer the explanation the better the buy-in from other delegates.

Presentation

The actual delivery of the session may have different issues for people with different disabilities. Here is a list of some of the more common issues that disabled delegates may experience.

Visual impairment

Are they referring to something on the screen that I can't see?

Should I be listening to the presenter or listening to screen reader speaking the text on the screen? Which is most important?

The text size in the chat pane is far too small for me to read so I cannot respond.

My screenreader cannot access the chat pane.

My screenreader found the chat pane but every time somebody adds a comment the screen reader refocuses at the top of the page and I have two read all the way down again.

Hearing impairment

We are still on the same slide. Is the presenter talking about the bullet points or has she given us a task that I missed?

People seem to be doing an activity (Whiteboard? Voting) but nothing on the screen or in the text chat is explaining what I must do.

It's hard to keep up with the multiple threads in the text chat when I'm working in a second language (British Sign Language is my first language)

Literacy difficulties.

I'm ashamed of my spelling. I don't want to write a comment.

It made sense in my head but by the time it was in the text chat pane it was garbled.

I read too slowly to keep up with the multiple threads in the text chat.

Dexterity difficulties

How can I access all the features without a mouse?

I write too slowly to keep up with the text chat threads.

Presentation 'good practices'

Make sure there is a spare facilitator who can focus on the accessibility issues.

Accessible copy of the presentation sent in advance - so I delegate with a disability can focus on the added value of the live presentation having already familiarised themselves with the content.

Make sure system features you plan to use have been discussed/tested with disabled delegates in advance.

Describe the key content of all slides. For some webinars you may prepare a transcript. The appropriate paragraphs can be pasted into the text chat pane or another communication channel (for example, Skype, a wiki page etc). Deviations from the script can be flagged in the chat pane by the facilitator

Build in staging points for the facilitator to summarise key threads both aurally and in the text chat pane. It is also a chance to invite people to comment.

If appropriate, a disabled delegate could be given permanent "open mike" to request clarification at any time.

The facilitator can use periodic private communication (instant message or phone) to check all is OK.

Ensure activity instructions are both visible on an instruction slide and audibly explained.

Use relevant images to support slide text.

If a sign language interpreter is supporting a deaf participant make sure the presentation is provided in advance so that technical or abstract terms can be clarified. Don't speak too quickly. Build in pauses.

If you are using a WebCam to present ensure your faces lit from the front to aid lip reading.

Post presentation follow-up

Where delegates have been interacting through a text chat pane, it is generally good practice to make a copy of the text chat (or at least a summary of some key points) available to delegates afterwards. This gives people who are slower readers or writers a chance to benefit from the discussions even if they couldn't keep up with them during the session.

Conclusion

95% the time, accessibility is simply good practice that benefits everyone. In many cases webinars can be more accessible than traditional teaching approaches. Using the tips above should help you give a good experience for as many as possible.

To find out more about accessible online learning why not join the University of Southampton's FutureLearn MOOC on Digital Accessibility: Enabling Participation in the Information Society?

Do you have any tips of your own for accessible webinars? Add them in the comments below.

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Accessible webinars - making online work for everyone - Accessible Organisations

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Online presentations and web-based seminars (webinars) are becoming more mainstream as educational institutions and training providers look for more efficient ways of supporting learners. But how do webinars work for people with disabilities? This blog post by Alistair McNaught looks at how to get the most from webinar opportunities.

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Accessible Webinars : SBCTC's Library of Accessibility Resources

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Date: Information on specific evaluation tools is updated frequently, as we receive it. In the "Detailed Information" for each tool, there is an "Information updated:" date. This user interface was updated in March 2016. The list was first published in March 2006.

Developers/Editors: Eric Eggert and Shadi Abou-Zahra. Current Content Maintainer: José Ramón Hilera González. User Interface developed with the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG). Database maintained by the Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG). Acknowledgements lists contributors and previous editors. Developed with support from the WAI-TIES Project in 2006, and updated with support from the WAI-ACT Project in 2014.

See Important Disclaimer above.

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Date: Information on specific evaluation tools is updated frequently, as we receive it. In the "Detailed Information" for each tool, there is an "Information updated:" date. This user interface was updated in March 2016. The list was first published in March 2006. Developers/Editors: Eric Eggert and Shadi Abou-Zahra.

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Making Accessible Links: 15 Golden Rules For Developers — SitePoint

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If links are what makes the web special, it’s up to us to make sure they work for everyone! Gian delivers the last word in accessible links .

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NOTE: If the audio or video is designated as an alternative to web content (e.g., an audio or sign language version of a web page, for example), then the web content itself serves as the alternative.

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Creating accessible Google drive documents

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Creating accessible Google drive documents

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Introduction

Google Drive Documents (Google Docs) is the widely used word processing application through Google Drive. Google Docs is missing some key accessibility functions, but the methods in this tutorial will increase the accessibility of documents produced through Google Docs. Google Docs should be used with caution, as source material made through Google Docs cannot be made as accessible as source material produced through Microsoft Word. As the program can be used in a collaborative basis, the importance of making it accessible is necessary.

In this tutorial, the accessibility of Google Docs will be covered through:

Paragraph headings provide context and a way to navigate quickly for users of assistive technologies like screen readers. Such technologies ignore text size and emphasis (bold, italic, underline) unless certain paragraph styles such as Headings, are used. As an added benefit, Headings can be used to automatically generate a Table of Contents or bookmarks in a document. Additionally, styles modify the formatting of all occurrences in a document, so you can quickly change the format of all Headings of a particular level (you can still override global settings by changing the format of an individual piece of text, regardless of style assignment).

Headings should be selected based on their hierarchy in the document. Start the page with a heading that describes overall document content (Heading 1). Follow it with sub-headings (Heading 2) and sub sub-headings (Heading 3), etc.. Items of equal importance should be equal level headings, and heading levels should not be skipped (i.e., a Heading 3 can't be the first heading after Heading 1; Heading 2 can't be skipped).

To make an item a heading in Google Docs, select the Styles drop-down menu, located to the left of the font drop-down menu. The Headings can also be called with keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+Alt+1 (Heading 1), Ctrl+Alt+2 (Heading 2), etc.

Change from Normal Text to Heading 1, Heading 2, or Heading 3, using the appropriate heading levels depending on your content structure (as described above).

Any of the three heading styles can be used to help a screen reader navigate through the Google Docs page. Heading 1 should be used as the page title, and Headings 2 and 3 should be used as subsections and sub-subsections respectively.

Images can play significant roles in Google Docs. The way to make them accessible is to add Alternative Text, or Alt Text, to the image. Alternative text for images, charts, graphs, and tables is vital to ensuring that users with visual impairments have access to information included in these visuals. This descriptive text should be limited to 120 characters for simple images, while the alternative text for graphs, tables, and complex images (such as detailed maps and diagrams) should give a brief summary of the included information. Alternative text should provide sufficient information so that users who are unable to see them are still able to understand what they convey. Images used for purely decorative purposes (i.e., those that do not provide any meaningful information) should not have alternative text. If the body of the document already contains a sufficiently detailed description in close proximity to the image, the alternative text can simply identify the image so that the reader knows when it is being referred to.

While there are no hard and fast rules for determining what alternative text should say (it depends on the image, its context, the intent of the author, etc.), one simple trick is to imagine describing the image to someone over the phone. The more important an image's content is, the more descriptive the alternative text should be.

For the MSU wordmark (shown in the examples below), "Michigan State University wordmark" would be appropriate for most documents. A graphic design document describing the introduction and use of different branding marks at MSU might require a more detailed description, if the specific formatting of the text would be important to the reader.

For charts and graphs, chart type (i.e., bar, pie, line, etc.), data type or axes, overall trends or patterns, and relevant data points should be described. For example, a simple chart might have the following alternative text: "Bar chart of number of traffic fatalities in Ingham county from 2008-2010. Fatalities have increased for the last two years. There were 121 fatalities in 2008, 157 in 2009, and 160 in 2010."

Color Contrast

It is essential that appropriate contrast exist between text and the background. In general, lightly colored text should have a darker background and darkly colored text should have a light background. For more on how to test the accessibility of your color contrast, see the Color Contrast tutorial (which uses the Colour Contrast Analyser, a helpful tool for testing your color contrast).

Like headings, using the list tools to create bulleted and numbered lists ensures that screen readers can effectively read list items. Manually inserting any of the list items will not help. Any numbered list that has multiply layers should use a different numbering scheme for each level.

Use the Insert List icons on the formatting toolbar to create a list.

Legibility

Make sure to make your document is easy to read, not only for those with assistive technologies, but also those that don't use them.

Sans-serif fonts are considered more legible fonts for monitors than serif fonts.

Color plays an important role in any document. The color scheme itself should have contrast between light and dark without going to the extreme. Too little or too much contrast can make the document difficult to read for those who are colorblind or with low vision. Certain color combinations, such as bright colors, can cause headaches and make it uncomfortable to read what has been laid out.

Table of Contents

To improve quality of navigation for assistive technologies, it is recommended to add a table of contents. Throughout the document you must designate headings, because these are what used to generate the table of contents section. Using headings is also an accessibility best practice within documents. Doing so also provides other advantages for the author including the ability to rapidly modify the overall document style without having to change each individual header.

Select Insert > Table of Contents

Creating an Accessible Template

Google Docs has an extensive collection of templates, and they should be treated with caution. Some of the templates are accessible, but it is also possible to create an accessible template from scratch.

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Creating Accessible Google Drive Documents

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Google Drive Documents (Google Docs) is the widely used word processing application through Google Drive. Google Docs is missing some key accessibility functions, but the methods in this tutorial will increase the accessibility of documents produced through Google Docs.

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Font Legibility for Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired

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In order to successfully read print, the student must be provided with print that is legible. Not only should there be consideration for the type style and fonts that are used, but there must be consideration for the quality of copies. In an effort to con