Basic Accessibility Solutions
Solutions for Specific Web Accommodations
Whether you’re working on making specific accommodations due to an accommodation letter from Student Disability Services (SDS), addressing basic accessibility issues using the Basic Four, or using Universal Design guidelines to make your course accessible to all students, creating accessible content is foundational to ensuring that students with sensory disabilities or who use assistive technologies can easily read and navigate your course. This page features links to web pages or downloaded Word documents where indicated.
Documents
The most common form of content is documents. Because documents are a visual medium, the goal is to assist students with visual disabilities and those who use screen readers. Typically, the types of changes required for documents are those listed below.
- Semantic Structure (Headings)
- List Styles (Numbers and Bullets)
- Tables (Used for data)
- Contrast (Visible text)
- Descriptive Links
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Alternative Text
Knowing how and when to write alt-text can be tricky. This page provides guidelines and resources.
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D2L Course Content in HTML
Native D2L content is generally already accessible. However, the pages you create in D2L need to be set up properly in order to be browsed with a screen reader. This resource shows you how to use D2L’s built-in accessibility checker to verify that your page is accessible.
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Microsoft Word
These resources show you how to make your Word documents accessible for students with visual impairments and includes instructions for checking Word documents for accessibility.
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Microsoft PowerPoint
Learn how to run the accessibility checker and create accessible presentations.
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Microsoft Excel
This document demonstrates how you can ensure your spreadsheets are accessible and check them for accessibility.
