Whether your course includes one web assignment or is a full-blown online journey, you’re developing and managing online content for your students, who may have disabilities like “…blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these.”

And just like your instructional material, your online content should be understandable–and accessible–by your diverse students. Your online content should include the basic web accessibility features.

WCAG to the Web Accessibility Rescue

As the web and technologies consistently evolve, so does web accessibility. Luckily for us, the awesome folks at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which

…defines how to make Web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Accessibility involves a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities. Although these guidelines cover a wide range of issues, they are not able to address the needs of people with all types, degrees, and combinations of disability.

These guidelines also make Web content more usable by older individuals with changing abilities due to aging and often improve usability for users in general.

Download the Web Accessibility Checklist

Educause developed this handy checklist to help you evaluate whether your course (and web resources) are accessible. Below each checkpoint, we’ve provided links to the WCAG web pages that further explain the criteria for meeting each accessibility standard.

Download the Web Accessibility Checklist here.

☐  Can the application be used with only the keyboard?

• Click here for some keyboard requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use
• Read W3C’s Guideline 2.1: Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
• Read further Keyboard Accessible: Understanding Guideline 2.1.

☐  Do images have appropriate text descriptions?

• Click here for some text alternative requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 1.1 Text Alternatives: Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language.
• Read further Text Alternatives: Understanding Guideline 1.1.

☐  Do pages have a consistent look-and-feel?

• Click here for some predictable content requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 3.2 Predictable: Make Web pages appear and operate in predictable ways.
• Read further Predictable: Understanding Guideline 3.2.

☐  Does text have enough color contrast?

• Click here for some distinguishable content requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 1.4 Distinguishable: Make it easier for users to see and hear content including separating foreground from background.
• Read further Distinguishable: Understanding Guideline 1.4.

☐  Do pages includes headings and landmarks?

• Click here for some navigable content requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 2.4 Navigable: Provide ways to help users navigate, find content, and determine where they are.
• Read further Navigable: Understanding Guideline 2.4.

☐ Do form controls and widgets have labels?

• Click here for some text alternative requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Click here for some input assistance info.

• Read W3C’s Guideline 1.1 Text Alternatives: Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 3.3 Input Assistance: Help users avoid and correct mistakes.

• Read further Text Alternatives: Understanding Guideline 1.1.
• Read further Input Assistance: Understanding Guideline 3.3.

☐  When styling and layout is removed, is the document understandable?

• Click here for some adaptable content requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 1.3 Adaptable: Create content that can be presented in different ways (for example simpler layout) without losing information or structure.
• Read further Adaptable: Understanding Guideline 1.3.

☐  Does audio content have transcripts?

• Click here for some multimedia requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 1.2 Time-based Media: Provide alternatives for time-based media.
• Read further Time-based Media: Understanding Guideline 1.2.

☐  Do videos have captions?

• Click here for some multimedia requirements + related requirements + stories of web users + diversity of web users and web use.
• Read W3C’s Guideline 1.2 Time-based Media: Provide alternatives for time-based media.
• Read further Time-based Media: Understanding Guideline 1.2.

Additional Resources for Web Accessibility

• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

• WAI’s short and sweet overview of WCAG.

• The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is drafting a helpful and informative resource How People with Disabilities Use the Web, which includes sections Stories of Web Users, Diversity of Web Users, Diversity in Web Use, and Accessibility Principles. Despite its draft status, this valuable resource supports faculty and instructional designers in understanding how people with disabilities use the Web, the barriers these users encounter on the Web, and the principles for creating accessible Web sites, apps, tools, and more.

• WCAG on Wikipedia

• If you’re familiar with the web accessibility guidelines, you might benefit from this comparison (in numerical order) between WCAG 1.0 checkpoints and the current WCAG 2.0 (published in December 2008).

Share Your Experiences with Us

Tell us how you’ve developed your content to be accessible. What methods have you used? What tools or references do you find most helpful when creating accessible content?

Please add your comments in the section below.

By Robin Bartoletti

Director, Academic Quality and Communities