Quick Accessibility Tips

Every page in Canvas should have Headings properly identified using tools built into Canvas. Merely changing visual aspects such as the font size and appearance (such as bold, italic, underline) is not sufficient and not accessible because screen readers will not know that text is a heading.

Heading level 1 is reserved for the Canvas page title, and so the first level that can be applied within the content area is Heading 2. Headings should be nested in order without skipping levels.

Canvas context text can be marked as a heading in the rich text editor by selecting the heading text and then selecting the appropriate heading level in the style drop down menu. The style drop down menu is located above the text editor area in the toolbar to the right of the font size drop down; text is marked as “Paragraph” by default so the style drop down menu is likely showing Paragraph.

So if you only have a few minutes today to dedicate to Canvas accessibility, choose one of your Canvas pages within one course and ensure it has heading structure!

For more guides on Canvas (and the web), visit our Canvas Guides section.

Links in Canvas and on webpages should be descriptive, meaning that link text should identify the purpose of the link without needing additional context (whenever possible). This means that links with text that reads “click here,” “link,” etc. are ambiguous when read out of context.

Screen readers users can bring up a list of all links on a page with a keyboard shortcut, so clear, succinct, and unambiguous link text helps these users (and others!) if they are looking for a particular link.

• Links do not need the word “link” in the text.
• Example: A sentence that says: “Be sure to check the Rubric to make sure you have all elements of the project,” where the word “Rubric” is a link to the rubric document or Canvas page.

So if you only have a few minutes to dedicate to Descriptive Links accessibility today, choose either one of your Canvas pages within a course or one of your webpages and write descriptive links!

For more information about Descriptive Links, visit the WCAG webpage on Link Purpose (In Context).

Similar to Canvas pages, Word documents should have proper structure using Heading styles. Merely changing visual aspects such as the font size and appearance (such as bold, italic, underline) is not sufficient and not accessible because screen readers will not know that text is a heading.

Headings should be nested in order without skipping levels, meaning that headings should start at level 1, and then headings within that section should be level 2, and if headings are needed within the level 2 section, they should be level 3, and so on.

Text in Word can be marked as headings in two easy ways (tested on a Windows computer):

1. Select the text and then use the buttons within the Styles group (located in the Home tools tab) to apply the appropriate style.
2. Select the text and a toolbar should pop-up at the cursor location (if no toolbar pops up, right-click/alt-click within the selected text). Select the Styles button and then select the appropriate style.

So if you only have a few minutes today to dedicate to Microsoft Word accessibility, choose one document you are working on and start working on ensuring the headings have proper style!

For more guides on Microsoft Word, visit our Document Guides section.

Images can be useful and even fun supplements to course content, just remember to keep accessibility and universal design in mind. Accessible images include alternative text, or alt-text, so that screen reader users can consume the image description along with users using their vision.

Mindful and Meaningful image use

1. Determine image value: Do we need this image?
2. Evaluate context and purpose: Is the image informative or decorative? (Decorative images do not provide contextual value.)
3. Describe objectively: What is being presented?
4. Be succinct: Can the description fit in two sentences (or about 125-150 characters)?

Alt-Text in Word and PowerPoint

1. Images must be inserted in-line with text so that screen readers will read them in the proper place.
2. Right-click/Alt-click the image and then select View Alt Text. This should open the Alt Text pane on the right side of the screen.
3. Type the alt-text in the text box in the Alt Text pane, or check the box to mark as decorative.
4. Close the pane.

Alt-Text in Canvas

1. Select the image, then select the Image Options box that appears above the image. This opens the image options pane on the right side of the screen.
2. Type the alt-text in the text box, or check the decorative image box.
3. Select Done.

So if you only have a few minutes to dedicate to Alt-Text accessibility today, choose either one Canvas page with an image or one Word document with an image and write the alt-text for an image!

For more information on accessible images, visit our Making Images Accessible section.