Introduction to creating accessible communications

People with a wide range of circumstances benefit from accessible information, including those who have:

• Vision impairments
• Mobility impairments
• Learning difficulties
• Hearing impairments
• Have English as a second language
• Use mobile phones or other small displays
• Have slow internet connections
• Where video or audio are disabled.

A good way to think of accessibility in communication is to treat it in the same way we consider spelling and grammar. It should be built into the document/email/webpage/social media post, not added on afterwards. This will not only be inclusive, it will be professional, clear, and easy to understand.

This resource outlines some of the minimum essentials to create an inclusive, accessible Canvas course. These essentials include headings, tables, alt text, images and links. Additionally, this Canvas course offers information on how you can test for accessibility and further readings about inclusive design and accessibility standards and laws. Adopting an inclusive, accessible approach will improve the experience of all your students, ensure quality and consistency across the University and uphold our international and national obligations.

Go to Inclusive design for Canvas.

Fonts

1. Use Arial or other strong sans serif font
2. Minimum size is 12pt in print format.
   • Digital documents can usually be enlarged but avoid close line-spacing
   • For Powerpoint, minimum 18pt but depends on screen size
3. Do not use ornate fonts
4. Avoid using italics
5. Avoid using block capitals
6. Avoid using underlining
7. Use heading styles, not bold text for headings
8. Use bold text to emphasise text without reducing readability.
9. Embed hyperlinks into sentences which include meaningful information –avoid the use of “click here” or “read more”

Images

1. All images in documents and webpages require alternate (descriptive) text, unless they're decorative
   
2. All graphs, charts, diagrams require text
3. Do not use text boxes in Microsoft
4. Do not use scanned files

Layout

1. Use good colour contrast
   • Check with Colour Contrast Analyser. Vision Australia has written a full explanation on How to Use the Colour Contrast Analyser.
2. Left align text
3. Use a vertical line to indicate separate columns

Tables

First, is it really a table or a list? If it really is a table:

1. Avoid using merged cells
2. Avoid using blank rows and columns
3. Consider reading order of tables
4. Add bookmarks for table headers

Headings

Use heading styles to format Microsoft Word documents and web pages.

Video content

Include closed captions and/or transcripts. A full list of caption tips is available in the Ministry of Social Development Accessible Communications Handbook. Make your communications more accessible (PDF).

For more detail about how to make your content accessible, check out Making Accessible documents and websites: New Zealand Blind Foundation.