This presentation reviews accessibility challenges, why accessibility matters, and promote the idea of having an accessibility mindset. It covers some best practices and how to use them, accessibility checkers, accessibility considerations for different document types such as PDF, Epub, etc., and resources and training options.

1. ACCESSIBILITY and
INCLUSION IN OER
Jacqueline Frank, Instruction & Accessibility Librarian
Montana State University

2. Outline
• Challenges
• Accessibility Mindset
– Why Accessibility Matters
• Accessibility Best Practices
– Accessibility Checkers
• Document Formats:
– PDF, EPUB, HTML, Pressbooks, etc.
• Resources & training options

3. Participan
t Poll #1
What type of institution
are you from?
• University
• College
• Community College
• Other

4. Challenges

5. Accessibility Challenges
• Often seen as an ‘add on’
• Time!!
– both to learn about accessibility and
– to create accessible material
– it never ends; 100% accessible doesn’t exist
• What works for one, doesn’t work for everyone
• Shift in thinking
• Awareness and/or understanding
• Thinking it doesn’t have a big impact

6. Accessibility, Universal Design, and
Inclusive Design

7. Review definitions from PUB101
• Universal Design is the process of creating
products that are usable by people with the
widest possible range of abilities, operating
within the widest possible range of situations
• Inclusive design means that you're creating a lot
of different ways for people to participate, so that
as many people as possible can feel as though
they belong. It doesn’t mean designing one thing
for all people

8. Shared Goal
• Accessibility [often] refers to the design of
products, devices, services, or environments so
as to be usable by people with disabilities1
• Shared goal: accessibility, universal design, and
inclusive design can all help design content in a
way that more users can access, with more ease
1. Henry, Shawn Lawton; Abou-Zahra, Shadi; Brewer, Judy (2014). The Role of Accessibility in a Universal Web. Proceeding W4A '14
Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference Article No. 17. ISBN 978-1-4503-2651-3. Retrieved 2014-12-17.

9. Accessibility Mindset &
Why Accessibility Matters

10. Participan
t Poll #2
Are you mostly
supporting other
textbook authors, or
authoring content
yourself?

11. • One of the goals of creating open textbooks is so
that they can be accessed by more people, with
fewer barriers
• Therefore, we also want to follow accessibility
best practices

12. Why Accessibility Matters
19%
Undergraduates
with a disability
(NCES)
26%
People with
a disability
(CDC)
100%
Will experience
a disability in
life. (Access Lab)

13. Why Accessibility Matters, cont.
(Microsoft Inclusive Design Toolkit) (Access Lab)

14. Accessibility is a spectrum
• So many assistive technologies
– Glasses and contacts, screen readers,
mobility aids, hearing aids, etc.
• What works for one person, does not work for
another person.
• Providing as many options and formats allows
users to choose what works best for them
– One way to do this is to provide open
textbooks in multiple formats, such as Epub,
HTML, and PDF.

15. Accessibility Benefits Everyone
• Automatic door openers and curb cuts
• Headers allow users to navigate by section
• Closed Captioning allow users to view content
without sound, such as in noisy environments
without headphones
• Transcripts allow users to read the content
without video
• 100% of people will experience a disability in life
(if we live long enough) (Access Lab)

16. Accessibility Best Practices

17. Participan
t Poll #3
How much accessibility
knowledge and/or
experience do you
have?
• Zero
• Low
• Moderate
• Advanced

18. Who’s Responsible?
• The creator or the author of the content is
generally responsible for accessibility.
• However, publishers also want to help publish
accessible content, which means knowing what
to look for, and providing resources to authors if
needed.

19. Common best practices
WCAG 2.0 (web content accessibility guidelines)
• Headings
• Meaningful hyperlinks
• Consider Color
• Captions
• Transcripts
• Alt-text for images

20. Headings
• Formatting tool
• Used to separate
sections of a document
• Help all users and
screen readers navigate
content
• Apply in outline format
• Act as a map of the
textbook or document
Heading 1:
Title
Heading 2s:
Chapters
Heading 3s:
Chapter sections

21. Meaningful Hyperlinks
• Tell the user where the link is going to take them
• Avoid pasting the full URL
• Avoid using ‘click here’ as a link
• Let the link be the title of the content itself

22. Consider Color
• Ensure high color contrast of text, diagrams,
charts, etc.
• Do not rely on color alone to convey meaning

23. Captions
• Benefit people with hearing impairments or
without access to audio
• English as a second language
• Noisy, or quiet environments
• Generate automatic captions for videos using
YouTube
• Recording tips for captions:
– speak clearly, slowly, and close to
microphone

24. Transcripts
• Benefit people with vision impairments without
access to video
• Separate written document of the audio
• Do not have to be verbatim accounts of the
spoken word in a video
• Can be written before hand
• Searchable by all users

25. Alt-text for Images
• Written description of an image
• Read by screen readers in place of images
• Displayed if an image file doesn’t load properly
– What would it look like if the images didn’t
load?
• Displayed when the user has chosen not to view
images

26. Alt-text Guidelines
• Consider context
– Is it purely decorative? Mark as decorative
– Does it provide context or information? If so,
provide alt-text
• Be concise (usually one or two sentences)
• Don’t repeat information provided elsewhere.
• Be objective; don’t interpret or analyze
• Apply the same writing style and terminology as
the surrounding text
• Describe charts & graphs, and link to full data
tables from the text

27. Prior Homework:
• Prior Homework assignment: Write alt tags for one
of the images in this open textbook
– More alt-text guidelines are included in Unit 1,
under Accessibility: What to do

28. Open Textbook Formats

29. Document Formats
• There are many document types, including:
– PDF, Epub, Audiobooks, Pressbooks, etc.
• They all have different accessibility
considerations
– enlarging text, and reflowable content, if
multiple columns are supported, and more.

30. Document Formats, cont.
• EPUB - ebook file format, short for
electronic publication
• Online/HTML - web version
• PDF - Portable document format;
independent of application software,
hardware, and operating systems.
• Reflowable
• Change font size text & color contrast
• Supports vector images, metadata, and
CSS styling
• Maintains original visual layout
• Available offline
• Good for printing

31. Document Formats
• Takeaway: usually can save in multiple formats,
which is best to provide options
• Example OER with multiple formats

32. Accessibility Checkers

33. Word Accessibility Checker
• Check your Word documents for accessibility
using the built-in Word accessibility checker.
• In Word, open your document and click file,
check for issues, check accessibility. A side bar
will pop up, and you can click on any errors to
get instructions on how to fix the issue

34. Adobe Pro Accessibility Checker
• Check your PDFs for accessibility using the built-
in Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker.
• In Adobe Acrobat Pro, open your document and
if needed, add the Action Wizard to the toolbar
by clicking more tools. Then click the action
wizard, and make accessible.

35. Checkers for Online Resources
& HTML
• WAVE accessibility checker
– Go to wave.webaim.org and paste in the URL
you want to evaluate
– or use their plugin
• Tota11y
– Browser extension
– Learn more about Tota11y

36. They don’t check everything
• Helpful tools, but they don’t check everything,
including:
– Color contrast
– If headers are used
– Reading order, e.g. documents with multiple
columns, callouts, and textboxes

37. Self Care

38. Be kind to yourself
• perfection is not the goal
– nor can it be, since 100% accessible does not
exist
• Be kind to yourself
– practice self compassion

39. Accessibility Resources &
Training Options

40. • Lots of resources can be found online,
depending on the software the author is using
• Resources linked from PUB101 Unit 1:
– Create Alternative Text Descriptions
– Accessibility Toolkit, 2nd Edition
• Checklist for Accessibility
• Resources from me, your presenter:
– Instructions for Creating Accessible
Documents

41. Questions?
Feedback:
https://montana.qualtrics.com/jfe/for
m/SV_diBIqo756IyIE0C

42. Creative Commons License
Please attribute Jacqueline L. Frank with a link to the original presentation.
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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