Why Make Accessible Teaching Materials

• Increasing accessibility of educational practices and materials improves equity by counteracting the ableist exclusion of educators and learners with disabilities.
• Basing educational materials and approaches in accessible practices is better for everyone-- because everyone learns differently and benefits from more flexibility and modes of information-sharing. This is the underlying, science-based principle of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Using headings in the proper order (i.e. Header > Sub-header > Sub-sub-header, etc.) is important for accessibility in documents and web pages. Headings organize content and make it navigable for those using screen readers, keyboard navigation rather than a mouse, and slow internet connections, etc. Combined with visual styles, headings are a powerful tool for organizing information and displaying it visually.

Everyone benefits from better organized, more easily readable documents and webpages.  Specifically, these structures and headings are critical for those using screen-readers, keyboard-navigation or other means of navigating a page without a mouse, or slow internet connections. For someone navigating a webpage or document using assistive technology or without viewing the entire page at once, a lack of page structure and headings is cumbersome and prohibitive to finding information quickly, or even determining whether the content of the page is useful at all. Headings in the correct order allow users to understand the organization and content of the page upfront and navigate to a section of interest without needing to read or hear every word written.

Proper descriptive link text and link behavior improve the navigability of webpages and documents.

Everyone benefits from clarity in the description of links and how they will behave.  Anyone using a screen-reader, keyboard navigation, or other type of assistive technology may use links to navigate a web page or document, making it necessary for the links to make sense out of context.  Links that do not behave as expected (for example, opening in a new tab if not described as doing so) can disrupt navigation for users with motor disabilities or difficulty viewing a full screen at once.

When creating text or visuals for educational purposes, adequate contrast between foreground and background in text or graphics is important for all sighted users. In particular, for sighted users with color-blindness, reduced vision, or other differences in visual perception, sufficient contrast may be a deciding factor in whether the text or graphic is perceivable at all or without difficulty.  Contrast is a relatively simple factor to evaluate and improve in order to make teaching materials or web resources accessible to all sighted users.

Using high enough contrast and colors that are perceivable to the majority of sighted users is a way to increase both the access to the content and to heighten the content's impact and understandability.  Contrast can help build visual hierarchy and flow of information.

However not all sighted people have the same needs when it comes to color or contrast.  While it is sufficient in many cases to meet a the minimum contrast ratio between foreground and background colors, consider providing editable teaching materials so that educators or students may adjust the colors and contrast to suit their own needs.

Sighted people with reduced fields of vision, near-sightedness or far-sightedness, cataracts, or other vision differences benefit from sufficiently large enough font sizes and fonts that make distinguishing letters from one another easier.  Clear and readable fonts are also important for accessing information on a screen in different situations, whether it is on a smaller device such as  a phone or in bright sunlight. Certain fonts are better for users with dylexia or cognitive disabilities.

There is not a single font that is best for all students or educators. To make your content more broadly accessibly, consider using standard fonts that are accessible, making text content available in a format that can be edited or altered, and knowing the potential needs of your audience whether students or educators so you can provide them with a perceivable and understandable format.

Providing proper alt text and image descriptions allow blind and vision-impaired users to access your content.  Images without alt text-- or with poor alt text or descriptions-- create barriers to information access for some users.  Information is lost when images carrying content or important context are not given useful alt text for users who may use a screen reader, or may need text to help them interpret the images.  Additionally, poor alt text can create confusion or disrupt navigation of content.

In an educational setting, these disparities affect the quality of information being shared.  In order to provide equitable opportunities for learners, the materials need be accessible through multiple media.  Not only is this a more equitable practice, but it is an improvement for all learners or users of the pedagogic materials.  Flexibility and multiple modes of communication (text, image, auditory, and more) allow for learners to interact in the ways that are best for them as individuals, which has been shown to dramatically improve the pedagogical impact of educational activities.

Similarly to alt text, it is critical to provide information shared in video format in multiple ways: to give access to blind, visually impaired users, or those not viewing a screen, to provide support for video navigation and comprehension, and to allow content to be engaged with in different ways. Some learners may only be able to access the information in a video in one way, such as using a screen reader to read the captions.  Others may need the captions or transcript to help them follow along or understand the visual content better.

Presenting information from a video in multiple formats supports wider access and also improves the quality of the content- making it flexible in its use in a teaching context, and improving the searchability and retention of information.  For example, lecture or webinar videos that are available online are usable in more contexts-- as readings or searchable text-- if a transcript or caption file is made available.  Learners can benefit from interacting with a video in more ways than one.

Accessible documents (Word documents, PDFs etc.) and presentations allow your educational content to be used and shared broadly.  These accessible features can include many of those found within the rest of the checklist, such as alt text where images are used, or proper heading structure for the content and reading order.  In particular, PDFs and Powerpoints have their own considerations for the order in which text should be presented or read, which need to be set properly in order to create a flow of information.  Oral presentations with slides (a traditional form of lecture or student assessment) are a particular case that is often inaccessible, where the use of text, images, and speech are required to be used together meaning is lost when one mode is missing or cannot be perceived by an audience member.  Creating accessible slideshows corrects for this and also allows your presentation materials to stand on their own even without a presenter, providing context, explaining imagery, clarifying the order in which information is presented.

Making your documents accessible can seem like a challenge at first if it is not a consideration in the original design of the material.  But by thinking at the outset about your audience and considering the range of options you want students or instructors to have in engaging with the material, you will improve the design and quality of the material itself.

Creating educational content that is editable and able to be repurposed in different contexts is valuable for accessibility.  For example, a scanned textbook chapter without digitization is accessible only to sighted learners who those who can read and comprehend visual materials.  An editable digital version of the same chapter is accessible for many users, and for those who need information presented in specific ways, the content can be edited (fonts changed, size increased, colors edited) in ways that fit their own needs.  Beyond accessibility, content created or formatted so that it is editable is easier to share and reuse in other educational settings.  Especially for teaching materials available online, we encourage making flexible and editable content to extend the lifespan of materials, allow them to be used for new purposes, and support updating to keep up with modern research and pedagogy.

Improving accessibility of your teaching materials or educational resources allow them to reach a broader audience, especially learners and educators who experience systemic exclusion on that basis of disability and lack of access.  Web and document accessibility practices are part of creating more equitable educational environments.

Though learning to expand the accessibility of your content may require additional time and consideration in the process of creating educational materials, these changes in practice lead to learning gains for all students. The ability to interact with information in multiple ways allows individual learners to engage, build knowledge and skills, and demonstrate understanding in ways best suited to their needs and strengths.

The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, developed by CAST, provide an approach to designing educational experiences to be flexible and accessible. The guidelines are based on the well-documented finding in education research that individual learners have widely variable responses to educational approaches.

From the CAST site:

UDL is based upon the most widely replicated finding in educational research: learners are highly variable in their response to instruction. In virtually every report of research on instruction or intervention, individual differences are not only evident in the results; they are prominent. However, these individual differences are usually treated as sources of annoying error variance as distractions from the more important "main effects." UDL, on the other hand, treats these individual differences as an equally important focus of attention.  In fact, when viewed through the UDL framework these findings are fundamental to understanding and designing effective instruction. The research that supports UDL falls into four categories: foundational research of UDL, research on the UDL principles, research on promising practices, and research on implementation of UDL.

Read more about the research behind the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines on CAST's website.