For Faculty

Essential Elements to Online Accessibility

by Jackie Luft, Ed.D, Online Accessibility Specialist

Online Accessibility is a term used to describe how people with disabilities can access information on the website. For example, a person with a visual impairment cannot use a mouse, so there are ways to format a webpage and documents to make sure screen reader software can "read" the information. A Deaf/Hard of Hearing individual cannot hear the audio on a movie, so synchronized closed captions are required. A person who has limited use of extremities may not be able to use a mouse, so navigation is also a consideration. Color is also important, because 8% of males have color-blindness.

Federal and state laws mandate that all higher education agencies ensure ALL instructional content is accessible, whether or not there is a student with a disability in the class. Below are Essential Elements to Online Accessibility for online instruction material. Instructors can ensure they are meeting federal and state laws by incorporating these elements into all their online course material.

Documents

• Documents are formatted using styles.
• Save to HTML, Word or PDF accessible.
• PDFs are formatted with optical character recognition (OCR).
• All images have alternative text, title and description.
• Tables include title, heading row, and does not break across pages
• Graphs/charts have title as alt text and a long description near graph or in text body.
• PowerPoint outlines are saved as an accessible document.

Videos and Audio  

• Media with only audio includes transcripts (lectures, podcasts, mp3, etc.)
• Videos have synchronized captions.
• Audio descriptions are included to describe any instructional content that is presented visually.

Color

• Color is not used exclusively as an indicator of emphasis.
• Sufficient color contrast is provided.

Navigation

• Website can be navigated with the keyboard.
• Navigation tabs are consistent on each web page.

Basics

• No use of flashing or blinking content.
• Descriptive hyperlinks are titles of websites.
• Avoid "Click Here" or URL/web address.

If you want to learn more about online accessibility, eLearning provides trainings through webinars, face-to-face trainings, online materials and individual consultations. You can view these training opportunities on the TTU eLearning Events page. The Steps to Accessibility series can help you and your colleagues ensure all their instructional material meets federal and state laws.

As always, you can let us know at the Online Accessibility Lab if you have any questions!