The same best practices that make your websites and documents accessible also work in Canvas (and if you copy content from an accessible document and paste it into Canvas you’ll be off to a great start.)
Humans for the win
Automated tools like the Canvas Accessibility checker can be a great help, but even the best automatic accessibility checkers can only detect about 30% of errors. Doing accessibility well still requires human judgement.
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Alt Text for Complex Images/ Data Visuals
When you add a complex image or data visualization, include a two-part alternative text description: short and long. […]Read More…
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Alternative (Alt) text
You chose that picture for a reason. Provide description for your images and graphics so blind users can benefit from them too. […]Read More…
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Audio description
When a video has stretches where information is shown but not narrated, people who can’t see have no way to access the information. […]Read More…
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Captions & Transcripts (prerecorded)
Make sure your video has text alternatives for people who can’t hear it’s spoken audio and other sound. […]Read More…
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Color contrast
Make sure you have enough contrast between your background color and text. […]Read More…
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Documents (PDF)
The PDF format was created to preserve formatting in print documents. PDFs created from scanned or inaccessible documents are nothing more than full-page pictures of text. They need to be “tagged” in order to make them accessible. […]Read More…
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Documents (STEM)
Academic papers and course documents are subject to the same accessibility requirements as websites if they’re distributed digitally. Many mathematical and scientific documents include notation and/or charts and graphs that aren’t readily accessible to tools like screen readers (for a variety of reasons). […]Read More…
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Documents (Word, Docs)
Electronic documents (including those that people can download from your site or Canvas) are subject to the same accessibility requirements as websites. […]Read More…
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Graphics with text
When a graphic is distributed as an image (ie. formats like JPEG, PDF, PNG) any text that is part of the graphic becomes hidden from assistive technology and also may shrink to an unreadable size on smaller screens. […]Read More…
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Heading hierarchy
Use your word processor’s styles to create headings, and structure your page like an outline. […]Read More…
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How to: Color contrast checker
We like the WebAIM color contrast checker because it includes an eyedropper tool that lets you sample colors from a graphic or image before you upload it to the web. […]Read More…
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How to: Keyboard navigation
Checking that a page can be navigated without a mouse is one of the easiest accessibility tests you can do. It ensures that people who need to – or prefer to – navigate the web with their keyboard can get to the functionalities they need. […]Read More…
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How to: Screen readers
How to activate a screen reader on your computer, phone or tablet, plus our favorite screen reader cheat sheet. […]Read More…
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Link text
Link text should describe where the link leads. […]Read More…
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List formatting
A group of more than two related items is presented in paragraph form, separated by commas or is presented as a list but not marked up (coded) as a list. […]Read More…
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Presentations
Presentations have audio and visual components that some people may not be able to perceive. Get resources for PowerPoint and Google Slides. […]Read More…
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Tables
If you don’t use meaningful language and set your top row as a header, a screen reader user will quickly lose all context for your data. […]Read More…
Find more tools and guidance at accessibility.umich.edu, the university’s repository for digital accessibility knowledge.