Happy April everyone! I can hardly believe that the Spring 2016 semester is almost over.
Last week, I spent most of spring break at the CSUN16 Conference on Accessibility and I wanted to share a few tips with you to keep in mind when creating instructional materials. Accessibility may not be the most exciting topic for all, but when creating instructional materials, it is essential to make sure all students can access them.
Below are a few tips for creating accessible materials.
- Plan heading structure early
- Ensure all content fits into a logical heading structure
- Use built-in styles in Microsoft Word for all documents
- Provide good contrast
- Be especially careful using light shades of gray, orange, and yellow
- Light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background provides the greatest contrast
- Watch the use of CAPS
- All caps can be difficult to read and can be read incorrectly by screen readers
- Use adequate font size
- Font size can vary based on the font chosen, but 12 point is usually the minimum
- Don’t convey content with color alone
- Colorblind or low vision users can’t distinguish or may override page and text colors
Links for more information:
- Creating Accessible PDFs (lynda.com link)
- Accessibility for WordPress (lynda.com link)
The above image was taken by Nabeelah Is CC-BY-NC-ND
