Your course website can be an effective, convenient, and environmentally friendly way to distribute reading materials to your class. In order to ensure you are providing equal access to all course participants, it is essential that your material be accessible to people with disabilities and interact meaningfully with assistive technology.
Word and PowerPoint Documents
Documents created in Word or PowerPoint tend to be primarily text-based, making them one step closer to being accessible to the widest range of users. There are other elements, however, that require the creator to be proactive about accessibility:
- Ensure your document has clear structure by using the built-in heading styles and bulleted lists to make the text scannable to the eye and to assistive technology.
- Provide text descriptions/alternative text for any images, or null (“ “) alternative text in the case of decorative image elements.
- Use the table tool rather than hand drawn tables.
- Make all links descriptive — “Visit the support page” is more accessible than “click here” or “read more.”
- Caption any video content.
- Use sufficient color contrast.
- Do not use color alone to convey information — always use a secondary method such as underlining, bold font, or an asterisk.
PDFs
The easiest way to ensure PDF accessibility is to make sure the source file is accessible, i.e. the original Word or PowerPoint.
If you are not the creator of the PDF, you can still maximize accessibility of the document by adhering to the following criteria:
- PDFs should be in text format — If your PDF is in image format, convert it to text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software such as SensusAccess, Adobe Acrobat Pro, or another OCR software.
- Provide text descriptions/alternative text for any images, or null (“ “) alternative text in the case of decorative image elements.
- Ensure users can navigate the document using keyboard-only input.
Learn how Adobe’s Accessibility checker can help you verify the accessibility of your PDF.
Scanned Documents
Providing scanned material in electronic format is a convenient way to distribute otherwise paper-based materials to a class. Poor quality scans, however, can be problematic for readers of all abilities, and are particularly ineffective for low-vision users and those who use assistive technology such as screen readers or text-to-speech software.
When uploading scanned materials to your course sites, please consider the following:
- Always scan clean copies of text — Underlining, margin notes, folded corners, and misalignment make scans unreadable or difficult for people of all abilities.
- Use a high-resolution scanner — There are scanners available in all of MIT’s libraries for your use.
- If scanning from a book, press the book as flat as possible to avoid dark spots and scan a single page at a time when possible.
- Align the source material properly on the scanner to avoid crooked pages.
- Perform Optical Character Recognition on scanned documents before uploading them to your course site since image files do not interact with assistive technology such as screen readers and text-to-speech programs.