Student Disability Services is here to share resources and instructions with TTUHSC faculty and staff in designing courses and learning materials that are ADA accessible and compliant. To accomplish this objective, we offer ongoing training and support in assisting you with the implementation of accessibility standards that are integral to good course design. Whether it's working with various LMS programs, with Adobe, or Canva layouts, with PDFs, Word, or PowerPoint presentations, we're here to help ensure your course materials demonstrate accessibility and best practices in terms of universal design.
This short video, What is Digital Accessibility?, introduces content creators to the basics of accessible design.
Please also familiarize yourself with Content Accessibility Guidelines. WCAG 2.1is the current standard.
You can find other tools for instructors below:
PDF Accessibility
Because the processes of remediation can be both technically complex and time consuming, it is always recommended that the uploading of PDFs to course shells and modules be avoided whenever it is possible to do so. As an alternative, it is recommended, that all content be created in the LMS itself, and that scholarly articles be located via the campus library's database portal.
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The following practices relating to PDF design and usage should always be avoided:
- Avoid copying or scanning files as images and saving them as PDFs. The resulting file will not be accessible to a screen reader;
- Avoid trying to edit PDFs in Acrobat. The time for accomplishing accessibility is earlier on in the design process; and finally,
- Avoid copyright infringement when uploading PDFs to your LMS courses.
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- Basic introduction to PDF remediation (video instruction available at Mediaspace.
- Bulleted Lists
- Alt Text and Images (See video instructions at Mediaspace)
- Bookmarking Your PDF (See video instructions at Mediaspace)
- Graphically Complex PDFs
- Hyperlinked Images in PDFs (See video instructions at Mediaspace)
- Scanned Image Docs to PDFs Using OCR (See video instructions at Mediaspace)
PowerPoint Accessibility
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This video demonstrates the necessary steps that must be taken to ensure that your PowerPoint lecture reads correctly (sequentially and logically) to individuals accessing your presentation with a screen reader.
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This tutorial demonstrates how to remediate a PowerPoint presentation that is inaccessible to audiences due to a number of issues including poor typeface and font choices, improperly formatted tables, and finally, missing slide titles, which prevent users, especially those using assistive technologies, from navigating your presentation in outline form. Additionally, a step-by-step instructional text outlining the processes involved in correcting the issues identified by Microsoft's Accessibility Checker Report as effecting PowerPoint accessibility is available here for downloading and printing as well. As always, if you have an immediate technical need, or if you would to like schedule either a one-on-one or a group training session, please email Tamara.Mancini@ttuhsc.edu.
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This video provides instruction on using WebAim tools to match the colors of your fonts to branding guidelines while at the same time ensuring they're also in compliance with ADA accessibility guidelines for state educational institutions. A text and image-based instructional document relating to WebAim's color contrast checker tool can be found here. As always, if you have immediate technical questions, or if you would like to schedule either a one-on-one or a group training session, please email Tamara.Mancini@ttuhsc.edu.
Shortened and Accessible Links
In this video tutorial, various processes for creating accessible links are demonstrated. Formatting your links according to ADA accessibility standards makes your documents, whether Word or PDFs, navigable and accessible to individuals who are using a screen reader device or other assistive read-aloud programs. Also covered with this tutorial is a basic introduction to the site, tinyURL.com, which generates shortened links for creators and provides other features, as well, including storage and hits tracking for links previously generated with the tinyURL application (you will need to signup for a free account).
As always, if you need immediate assistance with a technical matter, or if you would like to schedule either a one-on-one or a group training session, please email Tamara.Mancini@ttuhsc.edu.
