Heading levels should be organized hierarchically, just as in a topic outline. The page title in Canvas is always automatically coded as Heading 1. Heading 2 is used for all subtopics on the page, Heading 3 for sub-subtopics, and so on.
Lists should be formatted using the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) so that it can be read as a list by a screen reader.
Using hyphens, asterisks, or other non-semantic characters may create the appearance of a list, but lists created without formatting tools will not be recognized as a list by assistive technology.
Keep in mind that depending on the content, some list styles are more appropriate than others. For instance, if you are providing instructions that must be followed in order, you should choose an ordered list style. If the list data isn’t sequential, you should use an unordered list style.
*You may not be able to see the list icon if your browser window is too small. You can expand the editor menu by clicking on the overflow menu (three vertical dots).
When making links on Canvas, link text should be unique within a page. Canvas allows users to make two kinds of links: external links, which lead to web content outside of Canvas, and course links, which allow you to link to a variety of course content: pages, quizzes, assignments, and discussions.
When writing captions for tables, avoid generic captions (e.g. “Data Table”). Instead, concisely summarize and contextualize the content. If the table is referred to in the text, assure that the table is consistently being referred to by its caption. You can provide an additional text summary of the table if needed.
Remembering that screen readers will read left to right and top to bottom, choose whether you will have headers across the top or left side of your table (or both). Be sure to set the scope of the header to properly associate the cells with their header(s).
Before leaving the page, click on the Accessibility Checker icon below the text editor. This will walk you through any issues and how to resolve them.
Using color can help convey information, but many users cannot benefit from the use of color due to visual impairment or color blindness. All users benefit from color contrast that makes information easy to read.
Non-English words will be read with the default English pronunciation if they are not marked with the language attribute. For many languages, the result is incomprehensible and inaccessible for students using assistive technology. To see and hear what this looks like, watch the following video demo of a screen reader reading various Asian languages in which the characters are not read correctly without the proper language attribute.
Language issues can be remedied by accessing the HTML layer of the page and updating the language attribute on any non-English text.
All videos require properly synced captions to be accessible. Captions must be at least 99% accurate to meet accessibility requirements.
Auto-generated captions are a great way to start the captioning process, but auto-generated captions often misspell key terminology and proper names, which greatly impedes student comprehension. After captions have been generated, you need to edit them for accuracy.
Kaltura (Media Space) automatically generates captions when a video is uploaded to your account. You can access the caption editor by selecting Caption & Enrich option under the Actions menu. After you’ve edited the captions, you must enable them by selecting Show in Player from the Captions tab.
For more detailed instructions see Kaltura Captioning Tools.
Audio-only content requires captions or a transcript to be accessible.
Audio files can be captioned by adding the file to Kaltura (Media Space) and editing the captions with the caption editor. See Kaltura Captioning Tools.
A transcript can also be provided on the page itself.