As educators at Texas A&M, we all share responsibility for creating an inclusive learning environment. Take the first step toward making your course materials accessible to all students by attending CTE's Digital Accessibility Sessions. Your participation directly impacts student success and ensures compliance with university standards.
Welcome to the SPH Digital Accessibility Resources hub. Our goal is to equip you with practical guidance tailored to the tools we use to enhance acessibility - Descript, Adobe Premiere Pro, FeedbackFruits, etc. Here, you’ll find clear, step-to-step tutorials and best practices designed to fit into your workflow, helping you create accessible course materials with ease.
Digital accessibility is essential for compliance with federal standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1, ADA). The 7 core skills below apply to content created in all digital formats.
Include alternative text, or "alt text," for every meaning image in your digital content.
Images, charts, and graphs are key means of providing information in course materials. However, people with visual impairments cannot see that information. Alternative text provides a text description of visual depictions that can be read aloud, offering visually impaired individuals and sighted individual a similar experience. Also, if a sighted user has a limited internet connection and images cannot or are slow to load, the alternative text will provide the user with the information the image portrays.
Ensure that foreground and background colors and other visual elements contrast each other.
Design appearance varies across different viewing environments. While your content looks one way during creation, users of adaptive technologies like screen magnifiers often customize color settings to meet their needs.
Also, relying solely on color to convey information creates barriers for color-blind individuals, people with low vision, and anyone viewing content in bright sunlight or on older displays. Always provide multiple ways to convey important information beyond just color.
Structure your online content with paragraph styles in documents or heading tags on web pages.
Most people don’t actually read a webpage from start to finish. Instead, we tend to skim through it, looking for the parts that matter to us. Properly using headings helps screen readers do the same thing. When headings are set up correctly, users of screen readers can hear a list of them and jump straight to the section they want. If headings aren’t used, those users have to listen to the whole page to catch any important details. Screen readers don’t identify bolded text or different font sizes as headings, but they do recognize text that is formatted as headings.
Provide human-edited captions for videos, and transcripts for audio-only content.
While captions and transcripts are often associated with supporting students with hearing impairments, their benefits extend to a wider audience. Students with learning disabilities can find them helpful in processing information more effectively, while individuals studying in noisy or quiet environments can rely on captions when audio is difficult to hear. Additionally, many students prefer consuming content in multiple formats, making captions and transcripts a valuable resource for enhancing comprehension and engagement across the board.
Write links that are clear, descriptive, and make sense on their own.
Links are essential for online navigation. Instead of vague phrases like "Click here," use clear, descriptive text for hyperlinks, especially for screen reader users. Generic labels can confuse users who listen to link lists, as they don’t convey where the link leads. Meaningful hyperlink text enhances understanding and improves navigation, as screen readers announce that it is a link before reading the description.
Use lists whenever possible to organize key concepts, sequences, or groups of three or more related items.
Lists help users comprehend text more quickly. Writers can use them to reduce reader fatigue resulting from trying to comprehend dense or complex paragraphs. Lists can provide a break in the document flow and encourage users to stick with the content.
Keep tables simple by using a clear structure, including a header row and/or column, and providing a summary in a caption or alt text.
Unlike sighted users who can easily see and identify the row and column of a cell by looking around, which helps them understand what the value in that cell represents, screen readers present a different challenge. They read out the cells in a straight line from left to right and top to bottom without showing which row or column the value is in. This makes it really hard for users to connect the data with the right headers.
Empower your documents with structured content, clear headings, and descriptive visuals.
Transform your slides into accessible presentations with intuitive layouts.
Convert your PDFs into scannable, searchable, legible, and readable resources.
Deliver inclusive multimedia experiences with synchronized captions, rich audio descriptions, and clear transcripts.
Enhance your Canvas courses with intuitive navigation, clear content organization, and accessible interactive elements.
Faculty members have several support channels:
Please contact the Academic Tech Team and/or Dr. Rhonda Rhan if you need any help.
