Ally
Ally in Brightspace is an accessibility tool that scans course materials and provides an accessibility score along with guidance on how to improve content. It highlights common issues such as missing alt text, low color contrast, and inaccessible PDFs, and offers step-by-step instructions to fix them. For detailed directions, download the guide or watch the video below:
Word
Microsoft Word has a built-in Accessibility Checker that helps you identify and fix issues such as missing alt text for images, unclear headings, and low color contrast. Using this tool ensures your documents are accessible to all learners and ready to use. For detailed directions, download the guide or watch the video below:
Excel
Creating accessible data tables in Excel ensures that individuals using screen readers can navigate and understand your information effectively. For detailed directions, download the guide or watch the video below:
PowerPoint
PowerPoint includes an Accessibility Checker that reviews slides for issues such as missing alt text on images, unreadable slide titles, or poor color contrast. Making these adjustments helps ensure your presentation is clear, inclusive, and accessible to all students. For detailed directions, download the guide or watch the video below:
PDF accessibility focuses on making sure documents can be read by screen readers and navigated easily. Common fixes include adding tags for headings and lists, ensuring images have alt text, and verifying proper reading order. Using tools like Adobe Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker helps you identify and correct these issues so your PDF is fully accessible to all learners. For detailed directions, download the guide or watch the video below:
WebAIM Color Contrast
WebAIM is an organization based at Utah State University that provides guidance, training, and tools to make the web accessible. Its Color Contrast Checker lets you test text and background color pairs to see if they meet accessibility standards. Color contrast is the difference in relative luminance between foreground and background, measured on a scale from 1 to 1 up to 21 to 1. WCAG AA requires at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text, while AAA raises that to 7 to 1 for normal text and 4.5 to 1 for large text.
Video Captioning for Accessibility
Captions do more than just accommodate students who are deaf or hard of hearing: they benefit everyone in your course. Non-native English speakers use captions to follow lectures more easily, and students studying in quiet spaces like libraries or on noisy subway commutes rely on them when they cannot use audio. Research shows that captions help all learners follow complex terminology, take better notes, and review material more efficiently. When you caption your videos, you remove barriers and support better learning outcomes across your entire class.
Complete Materials Accessibility Guidebook
The guide provides step-by-step support for using Ally in Brightspace, improving accessibility in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF documents, adding captions to videos, and checking color contrast using WebAIM.
