Prioritize accessibility improvements to your digital content
One of the biggest challenges in improving accessibility is determining how and when to make the needed changes. Your existing courses likely have a wide variety of digital content—none of which may have been originally created with accessibility in mind.
It may feel overwhelming to get started, but these strategies can transform the broader goal of accessibility into a more manageable task.
1) Review your content in smaller chunks at a steady pace
It can help to see your course’s accessibility improvements not as one big project to address all at once, but as a series of smaller updates to make over time.
Choose a gradual improvement approach that best suits your course’s organization and context.
A few ideas for breaking content into chunks are listed below:
- Make updates week-by-week in line with the course, changing only the content that students will be interacting with in the upcoming week.
- Address content by type, focusing on one area each month. For example, update text in September, visuals in October, tables in November, and multimedia in December. Or update slide content in January, Canvas content in February, spreadsheet content in March, and video content in April.
- Start with updating the content that is most crucial to understanding the course, and then work down to the least crucial content.
Make it a meeting
Whatever approach you take, try to set aside regular dedicated time in your calendar for updates. Treating accessibility improvements as a scheduled task—with a clear start and end point—can prevent overwhelm.
2) Take advantage of tools that help improve accessibility
Depending on where you create your digital course content, you may be able to use built-in tools to assist with accessibility improvements.
Note that these tools may surface more advanced improvements than discussed on this website.
- Canvas: The “Accessibility Checker” tool in Canvas can help you analyze content. Located below the text editor when you are creating or editing Canvas content, the tool will check for common accessibility errors once you click its icon.
- Microsoft: If you are working in a Microsoft application such as Excel, PowerPoint, or Word, you can use the Microsoft “Accessibility Checker” tool to get accessibility guidance. Click the “Check Accessibility” option on the “Review” tab in the application’s toolbar.
- PDF: If you are working in a PDF, you can use the Adobe Acrobat accessibility checker tool. In Adobe Acrobat Pro, under “All Tools”, click “View more”, then click “Prepare for accessibility”. Select “Check for accessibility”, set the options, and click “Start Checking”. All UBC faculty and staff can access Adobe Acrobat Pro for a yearly subscription fee.
- Web: If you are working in a web browser, you can add an accessibility-checking extension to use. The Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool known as WAVE is one such option. WAVE can be added to Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge browsers; once installed, you can click its icon to analyze any page loaded in your browser.
While accessibility checkers are useful for assessing accessibility, some checkers have limitations. Accessibility checkers generally can not determine if:
- the heading text and structure are helpful to students;
- alternative text and captions are accurate or meaningful; or
- if there is sufficient colour contrast between text and a background when the text is located in a text box.
3) Include some improvements as part of the course
Consider assigning accessibility improvements to teaching assistants as part of their regular workload and/or inviting student participation.
A couple of examples of how to include improvements as part of the course are offered below:
- TAs could be tasked with updating content of a particular type or in a specific area of the course during the term. Learning how to make accessibility improvements can be good training for TAs, especially for TAs going into teaching roles. Please check with your department to confirm whether this work falls within the employment classification of the TAs hired for your course.
- Students could be asked to describe key visuals in the course as part of an assignment or a quiz. This description can show their understanding of the content and give you guidance for good alternative text to use. (You will need to ensure that no students are relying on screen readers before taking this approach.)
Take It Further
TAs and students may also have valuable feedback on how the course content could best be structured, presented, or distributed. You could use mid-course feedback to ask about these improvements or other issues related to accessibility.
4) Aim for practical improvements, rather than perfection
You will inevitably hit barriers in making accessibility improvements, and it’s okay if some of these barriers are impractical in the moment to overcome.
Every course may have content that is difficult or even impossible to change. For example, you could be using a 40-page PDF from someone else that cannot be edited but has poor colour contrast or lacks tagging. You may not be able to do anything in this case—short of impractical solutions like re-typing the entire file.
It’s okay to leave content as-is when needed. You can always return to address more complex accessibility issues later. If a student with more complex needs is enrolled in your course, the Centre for Accessibility (UBC Vancouver) or Disability Resource Centre (UBC Okanagan) will help you ensure that the student can still meet the essential requirements of your course.
Prioritizing breadth over depth in your updates is a valid approach.