Criteria
Summary
Explanation
Provide text alternatives for non text content
Give learners text-based alternatives, such as text boxes or slide notes, for non-text content. You can also use alternative text to describe objects for learners with screen readers.
Provide an alternative to video-only and audio-only content
Give learners text-based alternatives, such as text boxes or slide notes, for audio and video content. If that's not possible, you could include a downloadable transcript.
Provide captions for videos with audio
Some video players now have automatic captions generated based off the speech. These aren't always 100% correct. If using existing videos that you don't own and they don't have captions, that's your best bet. Otherwise, if you own the video or are developing a new video, you need to ensure you include captions.
Video with audio has a second alternative
Give learners a separate audio track or a detailed text-based alternative that describes video content that can’t be heard in the audio. For example, any text on screen.
Logical structure
You need to clearly define your course structure and relationship of content. Some ways of doing this include:
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Creating a menu to convey the structure of your course
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Organise slide text with tables, headings, lists and blank lines between paragraphs.
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Add alternative text to provide context for screen readers
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Provide text alternatives for any visual content in your course, for example graphs and colour coding.
Present content in a meaningful order
When screen readers go through your course, it needs to be in a meaningful order for people to interpret the content correctly. If it's presented out of sequence it may confuse the learner. For example, you wouldn't display the answers before the question. You also wouldn't display the body text before heading text.
Use more than one sense for instructions
Provide text-based instructions for content that can only be understood by shape, size, visual location, orientation, or sound. If possible, only have simple text based instructions with no visuals or audio.
Don’t use presentation that relies solely on colour
Provide alternatives when colour is used to convey important information or instructions. Learners with colour blindness might not see the differences in your colour choices. You might consider adding screen text to identify colours (green, blue, etc) and using a high contrast of colour for hyperlinks.
Don’t play audio automatically
Ensure the learner has control over the audio such as play/pause buttons and volume control. All controls should be accessed by keyboards and screen readers. Do not play audio automatically.
Accessible by keyboard only
Use only keyboard-accessible content features in your course. If building an interactive course, avoid drag-and-drop interactions as this is incredibly hard to make accessible. If you do go with a drag-and-drop, make sure you provide a keyboard-accessible alternative.
Don’t trap keyboard users
When building an accessible course, you need to make sure the 'tab order' doesn't trap keyboard focus anywhere within your course. For example, you've missed the fact that the 'next' button is not accessible to keyboards. That's a big problem, because learners will be 'trapped' on the first page! As a quick test, publish your course locally, open it up in a chrome browser and use 'tab' on your keyboard to view the sequence and whether you get trapped.
Provide shortcut options
Course authors can create key-press triggers, which are essentially custom keyboard shortcuts. These triggers only work when specific objects have focus.
Time limits have user controls
Don’t add time limits to activities unless the time limit is essential to the functionality. If you must have time limits then there must be an option to either turn it off, adjust or extend the time limit.
Provide user controls for moving content
You must be able to give the learner control of the pace of the course. If building an interactive course based on a timeline for example, the learner must be given controls over that content.
Provide user controls for moving content
You must be able to give the learner control of the pace of the course. If building an interactive course based on a timeline for example, the learner must be given controls over that content.
No content flashes more than three times per second
Don’t use videos or animations that flash or blink more than three times per second.
Provide a ‘Skip to Content’ link
Learners can skip repetitive navigation elements to access slide content immediately when tabbing through a course with a screen reader.
Use helpful and clear page titles
Add a title to each slide in your course and make it the first object in the screen reader sequence. It's also important your course menu is clearly titled and the same as the titles on the page for consistency.
Logical order
The course pages should be navigated sequentially and focusable components on each page receive focus in an order that preserves meaning and operability.
Every link’s purpose is clear from its context
Add text to every button and hyperlink so learners know what each one does. It’s also a good idea to add alternative text to buttons and hyperlinks for learners with screen readers.
Single point gesture
If you're using touchscreen gestures for your courses, ensure you provide alternative methods to navigate and complete all course components.
Action starts once mouse button is released
Click events happen when learners release the mouse button, not when they press the mouse button down. This helps learners recover if they accidentally click the wrong target. They can move the mouse away from the target before releasing the button if they don’t want to activate the target.
Alt text matches labels
Make sure alternative text matches on-screen labels. This is especially helpful for learners who use speech to navigate web content.
Control courses through moving devices
If your course can be controlled by learners moving tablets and smartphones, then ensure they have the ability to turn this off and use more accessible methods.
Page has a language assigned
Ensure your courses have a language assigned. If you have multiple languages, ensure this is clearly articulated for screen readers to identify and change if required.
Elements do not change when they receive focus
Ensure your courses components do not change when they receive focus. For example, if a next button takes you to the next page by default however when receiving focus, does nothing.
Elements do not change when they receive input
Ensure your courses components do not change when they receive input. For example, if you have a text entry for learners to enter details into, once the text entry receives that input, it goes back to it's default value.
Clearly identify input errors
If learners are required to answer questions or input details into a text entry, ensure you have validation and error messages.
Label elements and give instructions
Give learners instructions when they need to interact with slide content. For example, provide on-screen instructions when learners need to type information in a data-entry field so they know what’s expected of them.
No major code errors
When publishing courses, if there is any control by you and not the software you're using, ensure that code is well formatted and free of errors. You generally don't have to worry abut software generated code.
Build all elements for accessibility
You should make sure your course components are labeled correctly so learners with screen readers know what they are and how to interact with them. Use on-screen text or alternative text to describe components throughout your course.