Digital accessibility guidance

Structure your page with headings so that the page is easy to navigate. Users tend to scan pages, and headings can help them find what they are looking for quickly. People using screen readers can navigate a page using headings. 

Use the built-in heading styles in Word and Canvas. Here's how to add a heading, Microsoft website .

Headings must not skip a level and should be in a logical order. View an example of best practice for subheadings and page structure.

There must be sufficient contrast between text and background colours, although a very high contrast can also make reading difficult, especially for people with dyslexia. Use our branded PowerPoint templates, as they were created with accessibility in mind, with backgrounds set to light grey to make things easier to read. 

Avoiding saving presentations as a PDF, as this would prevent students from adapting to their preferred contrast.

You can also download our branded templates and brand guidelines which includes our colour pallette. Ensure colour is not the only means of conveying information, as people who are colour blind, blind, or have low vision might miss the meaning of what is conveyed if you use colour alone. 

Add alternative (alt) text to images. Screen readers read out alt text in place of an image, helping people using screen readers to have a better understanding of what is on the screen.

• Add alt text to Canvas images by clicking the image, select "Image options", then add alt text.
• Add alt text to images in Word and PowerPoint, Microsoft's website.

Examples of good alt text, from WebAIM's website.

Decorative images

Decorative images are images that are unimportant and do not add useful information to a page. They should be marked as decorative, so that screen readers do not announce them, and you can do this by checking the Decorative checkbox close to where you add alt text. Consider removing the image if it is not important.

Images containing text

Avoid images that contain text, as screen readers struggle with these.

A screen reader will read out a URL fully. For example, "https://www.sgul.ac.uk/about/our-institutes/molecular-and-clinical-sciences" will be read aloud as "https colon forward slash forward slash..." etc. Therefore, avoid using a full URL on a page as they tend to be long and make little sense when read out. Instead provide meaningful link text, such as "Molecular and Clinical Sciences", so users know where the link will take them.

If you wish to display the URL, this should be short (for example, limited to the site's domain name or homepage) or you can consider using the shortform of the URL, for example https://www.nice.org.uk/ becomes nice.org.uk.

Screen readers can read out a list of links of a page, and are read out one by one and out of context of a sentence. Therefore, avoid generic terms like "click here" and "more information" because users won't know where the links go when read out of context. 

If you are linking to another website, you should make it clear users are leaving the site in the link text. For example, "More about link text on WebAIM's website".

If the link opens in a new window, you can provide that information in brackets at the end of the link text, for example, "myworkplace.sgul.ac.uk (opens in a new window)".

Writing in plain English is writing in a clear and concise way, so that your content is easily understood. Using plain English is beneficial for everyone and it also reduces text on a page which can reduce feelings of being overwhelmed. There are resources for writing good content.

Create accessible tables in Wordby creating a header row, and adding alt text to a table.

Create accessible tables in Canvas by:

1. Adding a caption: select the table and the table button in the editor. Choose table properties, check "Show caption", save. Then give the table a caption. 
2. Giving the table a header row: highlight the first row, select the table button in the editor, select Cell, Cell properties. For Cell type, select Header cell. For Scope, select Column.

Tables should be used to present data, rather than for layout. Screen readers struggle with nested tables, split cells, or merged cells.

Captions are automatically generated if you record to the correct folder. Record your live lecture into the Panopto folder for the relevant module in Canvas. Follow the steps in Starting Panopto via Canvas. Captions are machine generated and not always accurate, but can be edited to improve accuracy.

Human-level captions can be arranged where a learning need is identified by the Disability Service. If a student has a need, such as a hearing impairment or processing difficulty, a request goes to the Disability Service for approval for human quality captions.

Microsoft Team's transcription feature gives a written record of spoken text and identifies each speaker in the meeting. The transcript is shown during the meeting and is available to download after the meeting. Instructions for transcription recording in Teams on our Canvas page .

Meeting attendees can view live captions during a Teams meeting, which are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Find out how attendees can switch on live captions.