LESSON: Accessibility Checker in Office Documents

ICT Proficiency, Digital Creation, Digital Teaching and Digital Communication

 

 

Aims of the lesson

• Understand the importance of using styles when creating documents
• By able to apply styles to text
• Know how to modify the style e.g. changing the font, text size, colour, spacing
• Automatically create a contents page
• Save your new style for future use

 

What is Accessibility?

• • “Accessibility is about removing barriers to participation and engagement.” (JISC TechDis, 2005)
  • This is important for educators as the Equality Act 2010 requires education providers to ensure that they do not discriminate against a student

  • In the way they provide education for the student
  • In the way they give the student access to a benefit, facility or service
  • By not providing education for the student
  • By not affording the student access to any benefit, facility or service
  • By excluding the student
  • By subjecting them to any other detriment

  • Click here for more on accessibility

 

Why do we need to think about accessibility ?

• Flexible access to learning opportunities
• Formats that are easier for some students to process (e.g. audio   instead of text)
• Effective provision of alternative formats
• Content available for reference and review
• Use own customised equipment to access learning opportunities
• Increased accessibility for all students not just disabled students

 

How do I Make Office Documents Accessible ?

• Read the Creating accessible documents and presentations web   page from the Derby Digital Practice Handbook.
• Read the Use the Accessibility Checker on your Windows desktop to find accessibility issues web page from Microsoft
• Use the Microsoft Word documents accessibility checklist or the Microsoft PowerPoint presentations accessibility checklist before publishing
• Read the Discovering the accessible features of your device web page to find out how to access your document as students would.

Activity

• Try the following activity referring back to the earlier resources on the ‘How do you use them?’ page if you get stuck.

1. Download the Accessibility Practice Document
2. Make sure all the fonts are formatted correctly and that appropriate styles are used through out.
3. Apply Alt text to the images and figures.
4. Move floating text and images so that they are inline.
5. Check that tables have column and row heading
6. Check that text for hyperlinks is meaningful.
7. Add screen tips for hyperlinks
8. Run the accessibility checker to see if there is anything you have missed
9. Save the document and access it using relevant assistive technology

Test your knowledge

Take the quiz to test your knowledge.

Conclusion

• A small amount of though when creating you content can help make you content accessible to a lot more people .
• The extra work put in to make content accessible helps the university meet it’s requirements to provide accessible materials and not discriminate against students with diverse needs.
• The extra work will also improve the learning experience of students without any disabilities.