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Accessible Chemistry Overview


What is Accessible Chemistry?

Accessible chemistry is chemistry content that can be understood and navigated by everyone, especially those who use assistive technologies (AT) like screen readers and braille displays. In algebra-based General Chemistry classes this includes:

This page provides an overview of the first three General Chemistry points: chemical equations, the periodic table, and complex diagrams. It also includes a section on chemistry-specific conventions for video subtitles. Information on the latter three points: math equations, data tables, and graphs can be found elsewhere on our website.

Related information on making math equations accessible can be found in our Math Accessibility Guide. Guidance on making data tables accessible is embedded into our Make Your Course Accessible (MYCA) Document Accessibility Guides and LMS Accessibility Guides. Depending on the complexity of the graphs involved, relevant information may be found inside our on our Desmos Accessible Graphing Calculator Guide (simple, interactive graphs) or our Data Visualization Guide (coming soon). Penn State also has a good Charts and Accessibility page. 

Accessible Design as Process

While this page offers sample workflows and solutions for General Chemistry based on the CITL Quality Assurance Team's understanding of the subject matter, it is important that instructors take them as starting points and adapt them thoughtfully to their specific context and pedagogy.  Designing content to be accessible is ultimately a process, not a check-list.  Imperfect implementation grounded in an underlying understanding of, and commitment to, accessible design often produces more usable, accessible results than "perfect" mechanical implementation without understanding. Accessible Chemistry is an area of ongoing expansion and many current solutions may be superseded as better, more targeted solutions become available and as technology and software evolve and adapt.

Accessibility as Pedagogy 

Sometimes instructors are concerned that accessibility may "compromise" their pedagogy, particularly in fields like Chemistry that have traditionally been taught with a large emphasis on understanding and interpreting visual diagrams. But this need not be the case! Thinking about and designing for accessibility can benefit all students. For example, instructors can clarify the concepts behind a diagram or verbally explain details they might otherwise assume students already understand.

Video Captioning for Chemistry

Video captions are limited to plain text. As such chemical compounds cannot be made interactive and even subscripts and superscripts cannot be formatted correctly visually. In addition to general best practices for captions (see DCMP Captioning Key), we recommend the following conventions when dealing with chemical compounds and scientific notation:

  • Superscripts and subscripts should be denoted using ^ and _ respectively.
  • Ion charges should be written as 2+ (or ^2+ if preceded by an atomic symbol) rather than as words.
  • Compound names, when used, should be written out correctly: for example, “cobalt (III) iodide” instead of “cobalt three iodide”.
  • Don't use compound names if they aren't spoken: for example, don't translate "CO_2" to "carbon dioxide".
  • Scientific notation should be written as a single number with a multiplication operator: for example, “6.022*10^23”.