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Accessibility Guide and Tips

We, at Digital Learning, are here to provide guidance on the digital accessibility requirements outlined by the U.S. Department of Justice, ADA Title II guidelines. Digital accessibility ensures that all of your students are able to access your materials to succeed in your course. 

We understand that this task may be daunting especially since instructors balance multiple responsibilities, which is why our team is committed to assisting you. We have created a comprehensive Guide for Accessible Course Materials to inform you about best practices and resources. If you would like assistance or to consult about your materials, please contact us or book a consultation.

What Accessibility Means to Us

Enabling digital access means ensuring that software, applications, digital text, and digital media are Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR).

  • Perceivable: essential information is unobstructed, easily detected, and effectively presented
  • Operable: interface is easy to navigate, able to control and operate via keyboard 
  • Understandable: information is intuitive and instructions are clear, free of jargon
  • Robust: compatible with assistive technology

Regarding instruction, course content should be designed to provide equal access to all learners, including learners with disabilities, learners who utilize assistive technology, underrepresented learners, and language learners. Ensuring that digital course content and multimedia are accessible reduces barriers to learning and provides equal opportunity for all students.

Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning

Designing for effective and inclusive learning in the online environment includes taking into account the perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust nature of course content. Enabling these accessible features within the materials and applications that are required for learning will help to reduce barriers and enable access for learners with disabilities and universally for all learners. Students who utilize assistive technology to read and understand material, as well as students who are temporarily affected by situational challenges, will benefit from digitally accessible materials. For these reasons, we see digital accessibility as a tenet of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Both prioritize the importance of inclusive practices to decrease barriers within education.  

We encourage you to use our Guide for Accessible Course Materials to better understand why these practices can help all students and interrogate your course materials to enhance learning.

Other Resources

Accessibility Checkers

Use built-in checkers and manually check for accessibility concerns.

Document and Website Formatting

  • Use built-in heading tools to create heading structure and style.
  • There can only be one Heading 1 (H1) per document or webpage.
  • Use built-in lists, bulleted and numbered. 
  • Use the column tool. Do not tab and/or spacebar to create columns.
  • For tables, use headers for rows and columns. 
  • Do not use tables for formatting or style.

Descriptive Links

  • Concise, unique, and explain its purpose or destination.
  • Avoid “Click Here” or “Read More.”
  • Always use underline. Do not use underline for anything else.

Color Contrast and Emphasis

  • Use colors with high contrast.
  • Do not use color alone to convey meaning.
  • Do not rely on formatting (bold or italics) only to differentiate information.

Alternative Text

Media: Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions

  • Use auto-captioning during Zoom meetings.
  • Include a transcript of the video and audio.
  • Include audio descriptions for video. 
  • For more information, UCSD’s Multimedia Services.

Accessible STEM Content