• Why accessibility is important
• Logical layout
• Use of language
• Adding and formatting text
• Colour
• Image information
• Uploading documents and using Ally
• Captioning Collaborate lectures, Kaltura recordings, and other video and audio content
• Useful links and further reading
At least 1 in 5 people in the UK have a long term illness, impairment, or disability. Making NILE courses fully accessible can help people with:
While many of our students actively use the services of the University's Additional Student Support and Inclusion Services Team (ASSIST), a large proportion of students choose not to disclose.
Students do not have to disclose anything, and those who have declared something on their application probably won’t realise that this information isn’t automatically passed onto their lecturers. With very few exceptions (such as students who may need a sign-language interpreter), students should not have to disclose a disability to anyone in the University in order for course material in NILE to be accessible to them.
In this guide we have deliberately avoided mentioning specific impairments, difficulties or disabilities in any of the sections. This is because making accessible content will help all of our students, and should not simply be done for the sake of meeting the Accessibility Regulations 2018 (see link below).
Setting out your NILE courses in a simple, logical way will help students to quickly and easily find course materials, online classes, activities, assessment information and submission points. Standard information that is in all courses (e.g., the module guide, contact information, assessment information) should be in those places designated by the NILE Design Standards (see link below).
Course content should be placed in folders set out by theme or week. Folders should be clearly and consistently labelled, as should the items within the folders. Content items will normally be arranged in the order in which students should access them: those at the top will be accessed first, and so on.
In your NILE courses, make sure you describe things clearly and without ambiguity. And avoid the use of expressions or idioms, as these can cause confusion or be completely undecipherable by others. Bear in mind, a lot of expressions taken literally make no sense at all. For examples, see The Independent's article, 88 very British phrases that will confuse anybody who didn't grow up in the UK' (see link below). Besides certain groups of people taking them too literally, many expressions are becoming old-fashioned and you’ll find your younger students will have never heard them before. In these cases, they can identify that it is an expression and it shouldn’t be taken literally —but they still won’t know what it means. Similarly, avoid sarcasm and subtle exaggeration.
When it comes to giving instructions or perhaps sending announcements from your NILE course, make your expectations clear, without making assumptions. For example, if you have students booked in for tutorials, make sure you tell them to arrive early, how long they have and what will happen if they turn up late. In general, don't assume that your students will know what the things in your NILE course are, when to access them, what to do with them, or how to do it. The notion that young people are digital natives has always been a myth, and while one or two of your students may pick things up quickly, many students will not have especially good digital skills, and will need clear explanations and/or instructions. When giving instructions, present them simply and in chronological order.
As much as is possible, it is better to write content directly into your NILE course than to upload documents. Content written into your NILE course is quickly and easily viewable by students using mobile devices, and is easily read by screen-readers. Before you upload a document, consider whether you could write that content directly into your NILE course instead. According to Government advice, "documents can make your content harder to find, use and maintain, and do not work well with assistive technologies like screen readers a lot of the time", see the Gov.uk link to 'Publishing accessible documents' below.
You will need to pick heading styles to help everyone using screen-readers. When you build a content Item or Ultra document, for example, there are options in the toolbar to let you specify whether text is part of a Paragraph, or a Heading or Sub-heading. Use these options instead of simply changing the size of the text or making it bold. You can still change the size once you’ve set it to be heading/sub heading, etc.
• The above image shows how to select text styles in Original courses.
• The above image shows how to select text styles in Ultra courses
With longer pieces of text, the use of accurate, meaningful headings and subheadings can help students who feel overwhelmed by a sea of text and make it easier when people come back later on to find something. Separate different ideas each into their own paragraph.
Left-align paragraphs of text. If using columns, make sure there is a very clear gap between them.
Choose a sans-serif font, such as Open Sans, Arial or Verdana. Avoid use of multiple different fonts. In both Original and Ultra courses, the default font will already be an accessible sans-serif font.
Avoid italicising whole sentences or paragraphs, use bold formatting to emphasise important words or phrases, again avoiding doing so on whole sentences or paragraphs. Reserve underlined text for links.
When adding hyperlinks to text, ensure that it is clear what will happen when they click the link. For example, will a new tab open, or will something download to their device? Show the website address where it makes sense (not a long string of numbers and letters), or convert words in the sentence to be the hyperlink where the reader doesn't benefit from seeing the full web address.
Examples:
Please note that URL shortening services (such as Bit.ly) make web links inaccessible in some countries, so should be avoided. With a long URL, especially those which contain long strings of random letters and numbers in them, best practice is to display a simplified version of the URL on screen, or a simple description of the page that it will take the reader to.
Accessibility standards specify a contrast ratio between text and background. The contrast can be lower when the text is larger. When using the university colours online we must adhere to AA accessibility standards as a minimum and AAA accessibility where possible. AA accessibility requires at least 4.5:1 contrast ratio between text and background, 3:1 ratio for text larger than 18pt. AAA accessibility requires 7:1 contrast ratio or 4.5:1 when using text larger than 18pt. We’ve included a link to a contrast checker at the bottom of this page, (please note it does not let you change the size of the fonts).
We advise against placing lots of text on these strong colours. When it comes to being able to read longer pieces of text easily, black text on white background seems to be accepted as the clearest combination. But for many people, such a stark contrast can make the text difficult to read. To alleviate this, reduce the contrast by either using very dark grey text on a white background or change the background from white, to pale grey, off white or any pastel shade. Ask your students if they prefer a pale blue or cream background colour behind text on your PowerPoint slides.
Use bold type to emphasise important words or phrases in the sentence, rather than using red. Use coloured text sparingly. as your attempt to make it stand out could in fact make it more difficult to read.
Finally, don't rely on colour when providing information and instructions. 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are colour blind, so take this into consideration before you provide instructions such as 'click on the green button to continue, or the red button to exit'. Make sure that any links, buttons, etc., are labelled with the word, not just a colour.
Images are often a useful addition to text and will help many people to better understand an idea, or to visualise a data set, or even just to brighten up your NILE course. However, it is vital to take into consideration that many students use screen-readers, and therefore will not see images. And some students may overlook an image entirely if it is unclear why it is there.
For accessibility purposes, there is standard practice for using images on the web which is outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (see link below). When you upload an image to a NILE course, you need to add alt (alternative) text to the image. Alt text is a short description of the image which explains the image for people who cannot see it. When deciding what to write, think about why the image is there, what information it presents, and then decide which words you can use to convey the same function and/or information. Leave the description blank if the image is purely decorative.
• The above image shows how to add alternative text to images in Original courses by using the alt text field.
• The above image shows how to add alternative text to images in Ultra courses by using the alternative text field.
Please note that if you use an image that contains text, screen-readers will not be able to identify the words. Therefore, you must make sure any important text from the image is also included as text. As an example, the images above both have text description explaining what the images are showing: these descriptions have also been included as alt text (which is not visible on screen) and as text visible underneath the image.
Essentially, when using images, the key message is that images cannot substitute for text. A properly described image can augment, enhance, or decorate text, but may not replace it.
Blackboard Ally is enabled in all NILE courses, and allows students to access alternative formats of documents uploaded to their NILE courses. When documents are uploaded into NILE, Ally creates alternative versions of the these documents in PDF, HTML, ePub, electronic Braille, and audio (mp3) formats.
Ally is a powerful tool, but it is important to ensure that the documents uploaded into NILE are already accessible in order for Ally to provide good quality alternative accessible formats.
Please note that Ally does not make documents automatically accessible. It will provide an accessibility score to show how accessible the documents are, and will provide tips on how to make the documents more accessible, but it does not turn documents that are not accessible into ones that are. And if the original document is not accessible, the alternative formats that Ally creates will not be accessible either. See our Blackboard Ally guide for more information (link below).
Additionally, LinkedIn Learning's course 'Creating Accessible PDFs' (see link below) explains how to create highly accessible PDF versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files.
Live lectures delivered on Collaborate do not, as a matter of course, need to be captioned. Where students have an additional need and require professional live captions in order to attend live lectures on Collaborate, then this will provided by the University, as long as the student is registered with the University's Additional Student Support and Inclusion Services Team (ASSIST) and has an Academic Inclusion Report (AIR) which states that captioning is necessary, or is in the process of getting an AIR and ASSIST confirm that that captioning is necessary. In some cases, hearing impaired students may prefer to have live Collaborate lectures sign-language interpreted rather than live captioned, in which case the best option is for them to view the Collaborate lecture in a study room at Waterside Campus, with a signer in the room with them.
Recordings of lectures which have been made in Collaborate, and which are available to students via the Collaborate recordings tab in NILE, do not need to be captioned. The exception to this is where a student with an AIR requires captions. However, if the recorded lecture was professionally live captioned when it was delivered, the captions will available in the recording as well, therefore no further action will be necessary.
If it is the case that an uncaptioned Collaborate recording needs to be professionally captioned, the best option is to download the Collaborate recording, upload it to Kaltura, and contact your learning technologist to request professional captions, as Kaltura's automatically-generated captions will not be accurate enough for the needs of a student with an AIR. Please note that professional captions are created manually by a third-party supplier, and can take up to two weeks to be completed. Professional captions may only be requested where a student with an AIR needs the captions, as this is a chargeable service.
Live Collaborate lectures and recordings of Collaborate lectures can be auto-captioned by individual viewers if they use Google Chrome's Live Captions tool (see link below). However, while these captions will be fairly good, they will not be 100% accurate, and thus will not be sufficient for the needs of a student who has an AIR.
When uploading a video to Kaltura, a set of reasonably accurate captions will be automatically generated. Unless a student with an AIR needs captions, the auto-captions will be sufficient, and no further actions will be necessary. Where a student with an AIR requires captions on a Kaltura video, please contact your learning technologist to request professional captions, as Kaltura's auto-captions will not be accurate enough for the needs of a student with an AIR. Please note that professional captions are created manually by a third-party supplier, and can take up to two weeks to be completed. Professional captions may only be requested where a student with an AIR needs the captions, as this is a chargeable service.
Video and audio content on the websites and mobile applications of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 does not need to be captioned, as websites and mobile applications of public service broadcasters are exempt from the 2018 Accessibility regulations under Part 1, Regulation 4 (1) (a) (see link below). This exemption also covers content on Learning on Screen's service, BoB (Box of Broadcasts). More information about the accessibility of content on BoB can be found in Learning on Screen's Accessibility Statement (see link below).
Regarding other non-University websites and mobile applications, video and audio content that is not owned and controlled by the University (e.g., content on YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud) does not need to be captioned, as the Accessibility Regulations do not apply to third-party content that is neither funded nor developed by, nor under the control of, the University. See Part 1, Regulation 4 (2) (e) of the Accessibility Regulations (see link below). However, this exemption does not apply to publically accessible media on third-party platforms that was created by University staff as part of their job. Where this is the case, the media on the third-party platform will need to be captioned to the standards set out in the Accessibility Regulations, regardless of whether or not a student with an AIR needs to access it.
In all cases where a student with an AIR requires captions in order to access media on non-University controlled platforms as part of their studies, then it will be necessary to take this in to account, and to provide a suitably captioned alternative, or to provide the student with a transcript of the recording.
More information about video and audio captioning and the Accessibility Regulations 2018 can be found on Jisc's guide, Video captioning and accessibility regulations (see link below).