Overview

Creating accessible materials is essential to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all learners. This page provides an overview of resources available at NDSU to help you use technology effectively in designing accessible content. Whether you're creating documents, presentations, videos, or digital resources, these tools and guidelines will assist you in ensuring your materials are equitable and accessible for everyone. 

Getting Started

This article introduces some basic considerations to help in creating accessible digital content. Additional resources include:

• Assistive Technology - A product, device, or equipment that is use to maintain, increase or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities. 
• Anthology Ally Blackboard tool used to score digital course content for accessibility, includes instructions for fixing the issues, and Alternative format downloads for students.  
• Enroll in the Online Self-paced Certificate Course Universal Design for Learning and Digital Accessibility 
  • Creating accessible digital content ensures it is available and usable by all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. To achieve this think about accessibility before, during, and ending your creation of all digital content. Review and fix accessibility issues before sharing the content with others.  
  • Begin by providing headings in documents, alternative text for images, descriptive links for URLs, formatting tables, including captions for videos, providing transcripts for audio, reviewing color contrast and much more.

Universal Design/Accessibility

Best Practices

• Creating accessible digital content ensures it is available and usable by all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. To achieve this think about accessibility before, during, and ending your creation of all digital content. Review and fix accessibility issues before sharing the content with others.
• Begin by providing headings in documents, alternative text for images, descriptive links for URLs, formatting tables, including captions for videos, providing transcripts for audio, reviewing color contrast and much more.

Learn More/How To's

The following checklist will help to review whether your digital content meets accessibility standards. The links also provide descriptions of why the items are important and how to make necessary changes. Accessibility Checklist to follow when checking digital content (insert PDF).

1. Accessibility Checkers - All documents and presentations (example: Word, Excel,PowerPoint's and PDF s) have been tested with an accessibility checker.
2. Alternative Text - A written description of an image, graph, chart, or other visual element on a web page or a digital document, embedded for screen readers.
3. Accessible Applets, Scripts, Extensions and Plugins - Links are provided to all applets, scripts and plugins needed to launch various technologies.
4. Audio Description - Text describing what is being display in a video for persons with a visual impairment.
5. Color Contrast- The contrasting colors of brightness with backgrounds, images, and text. Text and graphics are meaningful when viewed without color.
6. Descriptive hyperlinks - Text describing the hyperlink to provide context to understand the purpose of the link. Link is embedded in the text.
7. External Tools & Resources - Accessibility of all tools, content, materials and websites, including those from external sources, needs to be confirmed to meet accessibility standards.
8. Headings - Are used to organize content and make it easy to navigate.
9. Long Description - A text version of information displayed in a complex image, chart, or graphic. This is similar to alt text, but includes more detail.
10. PDF Tags - Tagging PDF documents creates a structure which allows assistive technologies to read through the document in a logical and understandable order.
11. Permalinks - Web addresses that point to a specific resource online and are designed to remain unchanged for years.
12. Reading Order - The order in which a screen reader will read out the text and at text included.
13. Tables - Are ways to help organize information, but also need to read easily by a screen reader.
14. Video & Audio-only Transcripts - Video and audio-only transcripts are text version of the audio content.  
15. Video Captions - Videos should all have the option to display captions (subtitles) synchronized with the audio.

FAQs

• Coming Soon!

Use Cases

• Designing and developing digital course content  
• Creating departmental documents and resources  
• Ensuring closed captioning is available and text transcripts for virtual meeting attendees