Accessibility Evidence

This page provides guidance on how to find evidence of accessibility when evaluating a course in Canvas.

Accessibility ensures that all students can fully engage with course materials. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act mandate that online content be accessible to individuals with disabilities. Here are some specific ways you can help identify content that may need changes in order to be accessible to all students. 

• Headings: Properly formatted heading styles are nested in sequential descending order. Remember that PopeTech makes fixing heading structure issues very simple.
  • See heading examples with explanations.
  • Use Pope Tech to fix heading accessibility.
• Alt Text: Images should have appropriate alt text, or long text descriptions, if necessary. This text makes the content accessible to students using a screen reader, or those not able to view the image itself. It can be hard to tell if images have appropriate alt text if you’re not using a screen reader, so this is an item to ask the instructor about.
  • See alternate text examples with explanations.   
• Link Text: Many screen readers and talking browsers scan a webpage for links and generate an alphabetized list for users. Effective link text clearly describes the destination page, so the link makes sense even when viewed out of context.
  • See link text examples with explanations.
• Color Contrast: Text color should be sufficiently different from the background color to make reading as easy as possible.
  • See color contrast examples with explanations. 
  • Use Pope Tech to fix color contrast issues.
• Color and Meaning: Learners who are blind, have low vision, or are colorblind won't be able to distinguish emphasized or highlighted content if color is the only method used to convey meaning.
  • See color contrast examples with explanations.
• List Formatting: Lists of information should be created using the list option, instead of using typed symbols like dashes or typed numbers.
  • See list formatting examples with explanations.
  • Use Pope Tech to fix list formatting.
• Tables: Tables should have properly tagged column/row headers. This is something difficult to determine if you’re not using a screen reader, so this is an item to ask the instructor about. You can look for split or merged cells, empty cells, rows or columns, or nested tables - these are all barriers to navigation for students with screen readers.
  • See table formatting examples with explanations.   
• Video and Audio: Videos should have accurate captioning, with capitalization and punctuation, and audio should have transcripts available.
  • See caption and transcript examples with explanations.