Accessibility
Keep asking yourself "Why will plain black and while text be inadequate to communicate my idea?" If you really MUST use something other then plain text be able to justify it, and provide a way for everyone to be able to access the all of the course material.
| Media | Vision Challenged | Hearing Challenged | Comments |
| Text | No problem for weak vision or color blindness if contrast is adequate. Blind people can access text with a screen reader. | No problem. | Plain text in dark type on a light background is the most accessible of all internet media. |
| Text Tables | Make sure the table can be read a row at a time and still
make sense. This kind of table should be accessible with by most screen
readers.
Be sure to specify the table size in percentages and not pixels. |
No problem. | Keep the tables simple. The purpose is education not displaying computer skills. |
| Photographs | Provide a textual description of the picture. | No problem. | Make sure you have the permission to use this photograph. If you took it yourself you should have signed model releases. |
| Charts | Provide an alternate textual explanation of the chart. An easy way to do this is to pretend you are describing the chart to someone over the telephone. These explanations can get to be very lengthy. | No problem. | Keep charts as simple as possible. Some normally sighted people have trouble make sense of charts. Resist the temptation to get fancy. |
| Voice / Video Clip | Voice clips are no problem.
Video clips need an alternate textual description of what is being shown shown. If the video clip is simply a "talking head" then no alternate text is necessary. |
Provide a complete transcript as a link. It is often best to put the link in the text were the clip is referenced or next to the button for the voice or video clip. | Be sure you really need the these kinds of clips. They take
up a lot of resources and are often harder to understand then a simple
transcript.
You generally need to have in your files permission from the speaker to use a clip of his voice. |
| Music | No problem. | Provide a short description of the music as a link. Be especially sure to include the mood or emotions that the music invokes. | Everyone might enjoy reading a description like this. Consider making it a part of the main course text. Watch out for copyright right restrictions. |
| Songs/Hymns | No problem. | As above but also provide a libretto. | Even people who can hear might enjoy having a copy of the words. Watch out for copyright restrictions! |
