CEU faculty and staff are encouraged to make all digital materials accessible to all. The sections below provide information on what we mean by accessible format, what training opportunities there are for accessibility, and how to make content accessible in most formats, including Word, PowerPoint, HTLM, and PDF.
Accessible Formats
Creating materials with accessibility in mind means that your content can be accessed and used by as wide an audience as possible. The goal is to ensure that all individuals, including people with disabilities, can access the information contained in your documents, videos, and other instructional content.
Most programs now include automated checkers that can help you to find and fix many accessibility issues. Make your content accessible to everyone with the Microsoft Accessibility Checker.
Checklist for Accessibility
This accessibility checklist is provided to help faculty and staff develop or modify course materials, lectures, and assignments in an accessible way.
Layout & Formatting
- A simple, easy to read font is used. The best fonts for a text Arial and Tahoma. Minimum text size is generally 11-12 point for documents and 24 point for slides
- Styles and formatting are used to create space between paragraphs, not tab or the space bar
- Bold or italics are used for emphasis, not underlining
Headings
- Documents are structured with built-in heading styles
- Levels of heading are accurate and are not skipped. For instance, the top-level heading is Heading 1, the next level is Heading 2, etc.
Links
- Links are active, visibly distinct and identifiable as a link
- Descriptive hyperlinks (the title of the article, title of video) are used rather than “click here” or the whole URL
Lists
- Bulleted lists are created with the help of bullet function, not dashes or tildes (~)
- Ordered lists (numerical or alphabetical) are used for information that is chronological or hierarchical
- Unordered lists (bullets) are used for information with no order or ranking
Color
- Colors are chosen with ample contrast used for all images and text. For instance, black text on a white background or white text on a black background
- Reds and greens can be difficult to see for those who are color blind.
Tables
- Tables are created through the Table function and are designed as simply as possible
- Tables have column and/ or row headers
- Merging cells is avoided
Graphics & Multimedia
- Images have meaningful alt-text describing the content for students with visual disabilities. The alt-text conveys the same information as the image itself
- Videos and podcasts are captioned or, if appropriate, a transcript is provided (ideally both)
PDFs & Accessible Scanning
- PDFs are OCR-scanned, not scanned as an image. This makes the document searchable and usable by screen readers.
- Accessibility Scanning guidelines (.docx) are followed. More information can be found on the CEU Library Accessibility page.
PowerPoint Presentations
- A white background with dark grey text is used.
- The font size is 24 pts. or larger.
- A format of 16:9 is selected, including for videos.
- Embedded videos are captioned.
- Images (photos, graphics etc.) must have alternative text that give an explanation of the image.
- Use PowerPoint’s Accessibility Checker to review your presentation.
Resources for Accessibility Training
The following resources are available to assist you with creating accessible materials. For easier navigation on this page, please click on the appropriate training link.
- Accessibility in Microsoft Office – Learn how to make your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents more accessible
- Video Conferencing guidelines in Zoom and Microsoft Teams
- Zoom Closed Caption live transcription guidelines
- Learn About Accessibility Features - Panopto Support
- LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda), is an online learning platform compromised of videos. You can register for short self-paced courses on digital accessibility.