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As a teaching staff member working in Canvas, you are responsible for ensuring that the content you share with your students is adapted for accessibility. In this article, you will find tips from The Project group for web accessibility on what to bear in mind for all types of information published online and on digital platforms. You will also find links and information about resources and whom to contact if you have questions or need support concerning web accessibility in general.
Practical tips for accessible content
Lund University’s quick guide for general web accessibility is there to support your efforts to adapt for accessibility the texts, images and other content you publish on web platforms. The quick guide addresses common accessibility problems and provides suggestions as to what measures to prioritise. Linked to the tips below are also complementary guides about how to use Canvas in practice.
Here are five tips that you can start to consider with regard to your own content in Canvas:
Tip 1: Text with heading levels
Make sure that the headings are correctly formatted with H2 for a main heading, H3 for a subheading and so on. Make sure there are no empty paragraphs or empty headings in the texts. Sometimes you might think the text looks better with double line breaks instead of single, but this does not work well from a coding perspective.
Tip 2: Images with descriptions
Images and illustrations are to have an alternative text (known as an alt text) which describes what is visible in the image.
Read more about images - LU´s pages about web accessibility
Tip 3: Comprehensible links
Design links to be informative and comprehensible.
Read more about links - LU´s pages about web accessibility
Tip 4: Video with subtitles
Videos are to include subtitles that meet accessibility requirements.
Read more about video - LU´s pages about web accessibility
Tip 5: Accessible documents
Documents published on websites need to be adapted for accessibility. But before making your document accessible, consider whether the information can be presented as a webpage instead. A webpage is preferable to a document from the perspective of accessibility.
Read more about documents - LU´s pages about web accessibility
Contact us!
Lund University is running an accessibility project that aims to support the whole organisation in its accessibility work, for example through quick guides, templates, training courses and networks. You are welcome to contact the project via tillganglighet [at] kommunikation [dot] lu [dot] se (tillganglighet[at]kommunikation[dot]lu[dot]se).