From using accessibility checkers to assessing color use and contrast, this list of useful, at-a-glance tips helps you create websites and documents that adhere to accessibility standards.
If you create surveys using Qualtrics, use their built in Accessibility Checker to verify that the surveys you create can be used by someone who uses assistive technology, such as a screen reader.
Prerecorded WebEx sessions cannot be captioned after the fact, and then replayed in the WebEx environment.
If you need to caption your recorded WebEx session follow these steps:
1. Download the Webex recording using the WebEx download tool
2. Convert to mp4
3. Upload to Ensemble
4. Submit request for help at http://tuhelp.temple.edu to get the video captioned.
Note: If you captioned your live session, the caption is only provided during live sessions and will not be present in the recorded video.
Closed captioning for hearing-impaired participants is a real time, online captioned text of the dialog in your live WebEx session.
WebEx has partnerships with Caption Colorado and Rapid Text, Inc. to provide live captioning of WebEx sessions. (A fee is associated for these services.)
Submit request for help at http://tuhelp.temple.edu to get the live video captioned.
Note: the captioning is only provided during live sessions, if the session is recorded, the captions will not be present in the recorded video.
Read W3's Alt Text guidelines or the WebAIM article on Appropriate use of Alternative Text for how to craft the alternative text.
The person hearing/reading the alt tag knows that it’s an image, do not reiterate this in the alt-tag (i.e. do not use “a picture of Temple’s bell tower” instead use “Temple’s bell tower”.)
A null-alt (alt="") should be used if the image is decorative or only used for structural purposes
People may have difficulty reading your content if the color contrast is too low (it’s recommended 4.5:1 ratio for normal sized text, or 3:1 ratio for large text). To check the contrast use a freely available tool such as the The Colour Contrast Analyser from The Paciello Group or the Juicy Studio Accessibility Toolbar.
10% of the male population is color blind. When marking items as important (or required), use a text indicator (such as an *) and a legend (“items marked with an * are required.”)
In Microsoft Office 2010 and 2013 there is a built in accessibility checker that can check your documents as you create them. Turn it on at the beginning and as you create your document it'll give you a real-time update on the accessibility of your document, along with tips on why and how to fix any errors or warnings. Visit Microsoft's site to find out how to turn it on, or review tutorials on accessibility features in Office 2010 or Office 2013.
When creating long documents or web pages, use headings (don't just making the text bold, underlined, or larger size, use a heading style ) to help assistive technology users navigate the content. Headings should be in correct sequence (Heading 1, followed by Heading 2, etc.)
To create a heading in a Microsoft Office document use the Styles box on the Home tab.
To create headings in a web page use the H1, H2, etc. tag.
Be careful not to use a heading just because it has the right formatting. Use it because it's semantically correct to use it, and because it helps assistive technology users navigate your content.
Need to create a PDF from Microsoft Word? Use the Save As feature of Microsoft Office and choose PDF (instead of using Print and choosing PDF.) This will preserve a number of items that help the PDF document be more accessible (such as headings, and image attributes.)